No Arabic abstract
The mode of explosive burning in Type Ia SNe remains an outstanding problem. It is generally thought to begin as a subsonic deflagration, but this may transition into a supersonic detonation (the DDT). We argue that this transition leads to a breakout shock, which would provide the first unambiguous evidence that DDTs occur. Its main features are a hard X-ray flash (~20 keV) lasting ~0.01 s with a total radiated energy of ~10^{40} ergs, followed by a cooling tail. This creates a distinct feature in the visual light curve, which is separate from the nickel decay. This cooling tail has a maximum absolute visual magnitude of M_V = -9 to -10 at approximately 1 day, which depends most sensitively on the white dwarf radius at the time of the DDT. As the thermal diffusion wave moves in, the composition of these surface layers may be imprinted as spectral features, which would help to discern between SN Ia progenitor models. Since this feature should accompany every SNe Ia, future deep surveys (e.g., m=24) will see it out to a distance of approximately 80 Mpc, giving a maximum rate of ~60/yr. Archival data sets can also be used to study the early rise dictated by the shock heating (at about 20 days before maximum B-band light). A similar and slightly brighter event may also accompany core bounce during the accretion induced collapse to a neutron star, but with a lower occurrence rate.
Shock breakout is the brightest radiative phenomenon in a supernova (SN) but is difficult to be observed owing to the short duration and X-ray/ultraviolet (UV)-peaked spectra. After the first observation from the rising phase reported in 2008, its observability at high redshift is attracting enormous attention. We perform multigroup radiation hydrodynamics calculations of explosions for evolutionary presupernova models with various main-sequence masses $M_{rm MS}$, metallicities $Z$, and explosion energies $E$. We present multicolor light curves of shock breakout in Type II plateau SNe, being the most frequent core-collapse SNe, and predict apparent multicolor light curves of shock breakout at various redshifts $z$. We derive the observable SN rate and reachable redshift as functions of filter $x$ and limiting magnitude $m_{x,{rm lim}}$ by taking into account an initial mass function, cosmic star formation history, intergalactic absorption, and host galaxy extinction. We propose a realistic survey strategy optimized for shock breakout. For example, the $g$-band observable SN rate for $m_{g,{rm lim}}=27.5$ mag is 3.3 SNe degree$^{-2}$ day$^{-1}$ and a half of them locates at $zgeq1.2$. It is clear that the shock breakout is a beneficial clue to probe high-$z$ core-collapse SNe. We also establish ways to identify shock breakout and constrain SN properties from the observations of shock breakout, brightness, time scale, and color. We emphasize that the multicolor observations in blue optical bands with $sim$ hour intervals, preferably over $geq2$ continuous nights, are essential to efficiently detect, identify, and interpret shock breakout.
Massive stars undergo a violent death when the supply of nuclear fuel in their cores is exhausted, resulting in a catastrophic core-collapse supernova. Such events are usually only detected at least a few days after the star has exploded. Observations of the supernova SNLS-04D2dc with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer space telescope reveal a radiative precursor from the supernova shock before the shock reached the surface of the star and show the initial expansion of the star at the beginning of the explosion. Theoretical models of the ultraviolet light curve confirm that the progenitor was a red supergiant, as expected for this type of supernova. These observations provide a way to probe the physics of core-collapse supernovae and the internal structures of their progenitor stars
We investigate the potential of the upcoming LOBSTER space observatory (due circa 2009) to detect soft X-ray flashes from shock breakout in supernovae, primarily from Type II events. LOBSTER should discover many SN breakout flashes, although the number is sensitive to the uncertain distribution of extragalactic gas columns. X-ray data will constrain the radii of their progenitor stars far more tightly than can be accomplished with optical observations of the SN light curve. We anticipate the appearance of blue supergiant explosions (SN 1987A analogs), which will uncover a population of these underluminous events. We consider also how the mass, explosion energy, and absorbing column can be constrained from X-ray observables alone and with the assistance of optically-determined distances. These conclusions are drawn using known scaling relations to extrapolate, from previous numerical calculations, the LOBSTER response to explosions with a broad range of parameters. We comment on a small population of flashes with 0.2 < z < 0.8 that should exist as transient background events in XMM, Chandra, and ROSAT integrations.
Shock breakout is the brightest radiative phenomenon in a Type II supernova (SN). Although it was predicted to be bright, the direct observation is difficult due to the short duration and X-ray/ultraviolet-peaked spectra. First entire observations of the shock breakouts of Type II Plateau SNe (SNe IIP) were reported in 2008 by ultraviolet and optical observations by the {it GALEX} satellite and supernova legacy survey (SNLS), named SNLS-04D2dc and SNLS-06D1jd. We present multicolor light curves of a SN IIP, including the shock breakout and plateau, calculated with a multigroup radiation hydrodynamical code {sc STELLA} and an evolutionary progenitor model. The synthetic multicolor light curves reproduce well the observations of SNLS-04D2dc. This is the first study to reproduce the ultraviolet light curve of the shock breakout and the optical light curve of the plateau consistently. We conclude that SNLS-04D2dc is the explosion with a canonical explosion energy $1.2times10^{51}$ ergs and that its progenitor is a star with a zero-age main-sequence mass $20M_odot$ and a presupernova radius $800R_odot$. The model demonstrates that the peak apparent $B$-band magnitude of the shock breakout would be $m_{rm B}sim26.4$ mag if a SN being identical to SNLS-04D2dc occurs at a redshift $z=1$, which can be reached by 8m-class telescopes. The result evidences that the shock breakout has a great potential to detect SNe IIP at $zgsim1$.
We present extensive ultraviolet (UV) and optical photometry, as well as dense optical spectroscopy for type II Plateau (IIP) supernova SN 2016X that exploded in the nearby ($sim$ 15 Mpc) spiral galaxy UGC 08041. The observations span the period from 2 to 180 days after the explosion; in particular, the Swift UV data probably captured the signature of shock breakout associated with the explosion of SN 2016X. It shows very strong UV emission during the first week after explosion, with contribution of $sim$ 20 -- 30% to the bolometric luminosity (versus $lesssim$ 15% for normal SNe IIP). Moreover, we found that this supernova has an unusually long rise time of about 12.6 $pm$ 0.5 days in the $R$ band (versus $sim$ 7.0 days for typical SNe IIP). The optical light curves and spectral evolution are quite similar to the fast-declining type IIP object SN 2013ej, except that SN 2016X has a relatively brighter tail. Based on the evolution of photospheric temperature as inferred from the $Swift$ data in the early phase, we derive that the progenitor of SN 2016X has a radius of about 930 $pm$ 70 R$_{odot}$. This large-size star is expected to be a red supergiant star with an initial mass of $gtrsim$ 19 -- 20 M$_{odot}$ based on the mass $--$ radius relation of the Galactic red supergiants, and it represents one of the most largest and massive progenitors found for SNe IIP.