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Register a new userA stubbornly large mass of cold dust in the ejecta of Supernova 1987A
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Authors
M. Matsuura
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We present new Herschel photometric and spectroscopic observations of Supernova 1987A, carried out in 2012. Our dedicated photometric measurements provide new 70 micron data and improved imaging quality at 100 and 160 micron compared to previous observations in 2010. Our Herschel spectra show only weak CO line emission, and provide an upper limit for the 63 micron [O I] line flux, eliminating the possibility that line contaminations distort the previously estimated dust mass. The far-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) is well fitted by thermal emission from cold dust. The newly measured 70 micron flux constrains the dust temperature, limiting it to nearly a single temperature. The far-infrared emission can be fitted by 0.5+-0.1 Msun of amorphous carbon, about a factor of two larger than the current nucleosynthetic mass prediction for carbon. The observation of SiO molecules at early and late phases suggests that silicates may also have formed and we could fit the SED with a combination of 0.3 Msun of amorphous carbon and 0.5 Msun of silicates, totalling 0.8 Msun of dust. Our analysis thus supports the presence of a large dust reservoir in the ejecta of SN 1987A. The inferred dust mass suggests that supernovae can be an important source of dust in the interstellar medium, from local to high-redshift galaxies.
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We present the late-time optical light curve of the ejecta of SN 1987A measured from HST imaging observations spanning the past 17 years. We find that the flux from the ejecta declined up to around year 2001, powered by the radioactive decay of 44Ti. Then the flux started to increase, more than doubling by the end of 2009. We show that the increase is the result of energy deposited by X-rays produced in the interaction with the circumstellar medium. We suggest that the change of the dominant energy input to the ejecta, from internal to external, marks the transition from supernova to supernova remnant. The details of the observations and the modelling are described in the accompanying supplementary information.
We report spectroscopic and imaging observations of rotational transitions of cold CO and SiO in the ejecta of SN1987A, the first such emission detected in a supernova remnant. In addition to line luminosities for the CO J=1-0, 2-1, 6-5, and 7-6 transitions, we present upper limits for all other transitions up to J=13-12, collectively measured from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX), and the Herschel Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE). Simple models show the lines are emitted from at least 0.01 solar masses of CO at a temperature > 14 K, confined within at most 35% of a spherical volume expanding at ~ 2000 km/s. Moreover, we locate the emission within 1 of the central debris. These observations, along with a partial observation of SiO, confirm the presence of cold molecular gas within supernova remnants and provide insight into the physical conditions and chemical processes in the ejecta. Furthermore, we demonstrate the powerful new window into supernova ejecta offered by submillimeter observations.
We present a study of the morphology of the ejecta in Supernova 1987A based on images and spectra from the HST as well as integral field spectroscopy from VLT/SINFONI. The HST observations were obtained between 1994 - 2011 and primarily probe the outer hydrogen-rich zones of the ejecta. The SINFONI observations were obtained in 2005 and 2011 and instead probe the [Si I]/[Fe II] emission from the inner regions. We find a strong temporal evolution of the morphology in the HST images, from a roughly elliptical shape before ~5,000 days, to a more irregular, edge-brightened morphology thereafter. This transition is a natural consequence of the change in the dominant energy source powering the ejecta, from radioactive decay before ~5,000 days to X-ray input from the circumstellar interaction thereafter. The [Si I]/[Fe II] images display a more uniform morphology, which may be due to a remaining significant contribution from radioactivity in the inner ejecta and the higher abundance of these elements in the core. Both the H-alpha and the [Si I]/[Fe II] line profiles show that the ejecta are distributed fairly close to the plane of the inner circumstellar ring, which is assumed to define the rotational axis of the progenitor. The H-alpha emission extends to higher velocities than [Si I]/[Fe II] as expected. There is no clear symmetry axis for all the emission and we are unable to model the ejecta distribution with a simple ellipsoid model with a uniform distribution of dust. Instead, we find that the emission is concentrated to clumps and that the emission is distributed somewhat closer to the ring in the north than in the south. This north-south asymmetry may be partially explained by dust absorption. We compare our results with explosion models and find some qualitative agreement, but note that the observations show a higher degree of large-scale asymmetry.
Extensive early observations proved that the ejecta of supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) are aspherical. Fifteen years after the supernova explosion, the Hubble Space Telescope has resolved the rapidly expanding ejecta. The late-time images and spectroscopy provide a geometrical picture that is consistent with early observations and suggests a highly structured, axially symmetric geometry. We present here a new synthesis of the old and new data. We show that the Bochum event, presumably a clump of $^{56}$Ni, and the late-time image, the locus of excitation by $^{44}$Ti, are most naturally accounted for by sharing a common position angle of about 14degree, the same as the mystery spot and early speckle data on the ejecta, and that they are both oriented along the axis of the inner circumstellar ring at 45degree to the plane of the sky. We also demonstrate that the polarization represents a prolate geometry with the same position angle and axis as the early speckle data and the late-time image and hence that the geometry has been fixed in time and throughout the ejecta. The Bochum event and the Doppler kinematics of the [Ca II]/[O II] emission in spatially resolved HST spectra of the ejecta can be consistently integrated into this geometry. The radioactive clump is deduced to fall approximately along the axis of the inner circumstellar ring and therefore to be redshifted in the North whereas the [Ca II]/[O II] 7300 AA emission is redshifted in the South. We present a jet-induced model for the explosion and argue that such a model can account for many of the observed asymmetries. In the jet models, the oxygen and calcium are not expected to be distributed along the jet, but primarily in an expanding torus that shares the plane and northern blue shift of the inner circumstellar ring.
We report far-infrared and submillimeter observations of Supernova 1987A, the star that exploded on February 23, 1987 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy located 160,000 lightyears away. The observations reveal the presence of a population of cold dust grains radiating with a temperature of ~17-23 K at a rate of about 220 solar luminosity. The intensity and spectral energy distribution of the emission suggests a dust mass of ~0.4-0.7 solar mass. The radiation must originate from the SN ejecta and requires the efficient precipitation of all refractory material into dust. Our observations imply that supernovae can produce the large dust masses detected in young galaxies at very high redshifts.
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