The light curves of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are powered by the radioactive decay of $^{56}$Ni to $^{56}$Co at early times, and the decay of $^{56}$Co to $^{56}$Fe from ~60 days after explosion. We examine the evolution of the [Co III] 5892 A emis
sion complex during the nebular phase for SNe Ia with multiple nebular spectra and show that the line flux follows the square of the mass of $^{56}$Co as a function of time. This result indicates both efficient local energy deposition from positrons produced in $^{56}$Co decay, and long-term stability of the ionization state of the nebula. We compile 77 nebular spectra of 25 SN Ia from the literature and present 17 new nebular spectra of 7 SNe Ia, including SN2014J. From these we measure the flux in the [Co III] 5892 A line and remove its well-behaved time dependence to infer the initial mass of $^{56}$Ni ($M_{Ni}$) produced in the explosion. We then examine $^{56}$Ni yields for different SN Ia ejected masses ($M_{ej}$ - calculated using the relation between light curve width and ejected mass) and find the $^{56}$Ni masses of SNe Ia fall into two regimes: for narrow light curves (low stretch s~0.7-0.9), $M_{Ni}$ is clustered near $M_{Ni}$ ~ 0.4$M_odot$ and shows a shallow increase as $M_{ej}$ increases from ~1-1.4$M_odot$; at high stretch, $M_{ej}$ clusters at the Chandrasekhar mass (1.4$M_odot$) while $M_{Ni}$ spans a broad range from 0.6-1.2$M_odot$. This could constitute evidence for two distinct SN Ia explosion mechanisms.
New spectroscopic observations of the LBV/WR multiple system HD5980 in the Small Magellanic Cloud are used to address the question of the masses and evolutionary status of the two very luminous stars in the 19.3d eclipsing binary system. Two distinct
components of the N V 4944 A line are detected in emission and their radial velocity variations are used to derive masses of 61 and 66 Mo, under the assumption that binary interaction effects on this atomic transition are negligible. We propose that this binary system is the product of quasi-chemically homogeneous evolution with little or no mass transfer. Thus, both of these binary stars may be candidates for gamma-ray burst progenitors or even pair instability supernovae. Analysis of the photospheric absorption lines belonging to the third-light object in the system confirm that it consists of an O-type star in a 96.56d eccentric orbit (e=0.82) around an unseen companion. The 5:1 period ratio and high eccentricities of the two binaries suggest that they may constitute a hierarchical quadruple system.
The model atmosphere programs FASTWIND and CMFGEN are both elegantly designed to perform non-LTE analyses of the spectra of hot massive stars, and include sphericity and mass-loss. The two codes differ primarily in their approach towards line blanket
ing, with CMFGEN treating all of the lines in the co-moving frame and FASTWIND taking an approximate approach which speeds up execution times considerably. Although both have been extensively used to model the spectra of O-type stars, no studies have used the codes to independently model the same spectra of the same stars and compare the derived physical properties. We perform this task on ten O-type stars in the Magellanic Clouds. For the late-type O supergiants, both CMFGEN and FASTWIND have trouble fitting some of the He I lines, and we discuss causes and cures. We find that there is no difference in the average effective temperatures found by the two codes for the stars in our sample, although the dispersion is large, due primarily to the various difficulties each code has with He I. The surface gravities determined using FASTWIND are systematically lower by 0.12 dex compared to CMFGEN, a result we attribute to the better treatment of electron scattering by CMFGEN. This has implications for the interpretation of the origin of the so-called mass discrepancy, as the masses derived by FASTWIND are on average lower than inferred from stellar evolutionary models, while those found by CMFGEN are in better agreement.
We study the formation of photospheric emission lines in O stars and show that the rectangular profiles, sometimes double peaked, that are observed for some stars are a direct consequence of rotation, and it is unnecessary to invoke an enhanced densi
ty structure in the equatorial regions. Emission lines, such as N IV 4058 and the N III 4634-4640-4642 multiplet, exhibit non-standard limb darkening laws. The lines can be in absorption for rays striking the center of the star and in emission for rays near the limb. Weak features in the flux spectrum do not necessarily indicate an intrinsically weak feature -- instead the feature can be weak because of cancellation between absorption in core rays and emission from rays near the limb. Rotation also modifies line profiles of wind diagnostics such as He II 4686 and Halpha and should not be neglected when inferring the actual stratification, level and nature of wind structures.
The Type II-Plateau supernova (SN II-P) SN 2004dj was the first SN II-P for which spectropolarimetry data were obtained with fine temporal sampling before, during, and after the fall off of the photometric plateau -- the point that marks the transiti
on from the photospheric to the nebular phase in SNe II-P. Unpolarized during the plateau, SN 2004dj showed a dramatic spike in polarization during the descent off of the plateau, and then exhibited a smooth polarization decline over the next two hundred days. This behavior was interpreted by Leonard et al. (2006) as evidence for a strongly non-spherical explosion mechanism that had imprinted asphericity only in the innermost ejecta. In this brief report, we compare nine similarly well-sampled epochs of spectropolarimetry of the Type II-P SN 2008bk to those of SN 2004dj. In contrast to SN 2004dj, SN 2008bk became polarized well before the end of the plateau and also retained a nearly constant level of polarization through the early nebular phase. Curiously, although the onset and persistence of polarization differ between the two objects, the detailed spectropolarimetric characteristics at the epochs of recorded maximum polarization for the two objects are extremely similar, feature by feature. We briefly interpret the data in light of non-Local-Thermodynamic Equilibrium, time-dependent radiative-transfer simulations specifically crafted for SN II-P ejecta.
We report optical observations of the Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) HR Carinae which show that the star has reached a visual minimum phase in 2009. More importantly, we detected absorptions due to Si IV 4088-4116 Angstroms. To match their observed lin
e profiles from 2009 May, a high rotational velocity of vrot=150 +- 20 km/s is needed (assuming an inclination angle of 30 degrees), implying that HR Car rotates at ~0.88 +- 0.2 of its critical velocity for break-up (vcrit). Our results suggest that fast rotation is typical in all strong-variable, bona-fide galactic LBVs, which present S Dor-type variability. Strong-variable LBVs are located in a well-defined region of the HR diagram during visual minimum (the LBV minimum instability strip). We suggest this region corresponds to where vcrit is reached. To the left of this strip, a forbidden zone with vrot/vcrit>1 is present, explaining why no LBVs are detected in this zone. Since dormant/ex LBVs like P Cygni and HD 168625 have low vrot, we propose that LBVs can be separated in two groups: fast-rotating, strong-variable stars showing S-Dor cycles (such as AG Car and HR Car) and slow-rotating stars with much less variability (such as P Cygni and HD 168625). We speculate that SN progenitors which had S-Dor cycles before exploding (such as in SN 2001ig, SN 2003bg, and SN 2005gj) could have been fast rotators. We suggest that the potential difficulty of fast-rotating Galactic LBVs to lose angular momentum is an additional evidence that such stars could explode during the LBV phase.
We present a multi-epoch quantitative spectroscopic analysis of the Type IIn SN 1994W, an event interpreted by Chugai et al. as stemming from the interaction between the ejecta of a SN and a 0.4Msun circumstellar shell ejected 1.5yr before core colla
pse. During the brightening phase, our models suggest that the source of optical radiation is not unique, perhaps associated with an inner optically-thick Cold Dense Shell (CDS) and outer optically-thin shocked material. During the fading phase, our models support a single source of radiation, an hydrogen-rich optically-thick layer with a near-constant temperature of ~7000K that recedes from a radius of 4.3x10^15 at peak to 2.3x10^15cm 40 days later. We reproduce the hybrid narrow-core broad-wing line profile shapes of SN 1994W at all times, invoking an optically-thick photosphere exclusively (i.e., without any external optically-thick shell). In SN 1994W, slow expansion makes scattering with thermal electrons a key escape mechanism for photons trapped in optically-thick line cores, and allows the resulting broad incoherent electron-scattering wings to be seen around narrow line cores. In SNe with larger expansion velocities, the thermal broadening due to incoherent scattering is masked by the broad profile and the dominant frequency redshift occasioned by bulk motions. Given the absence of broad lines at all times and the very low 56Ni yields, we speculate whether SN 1994W could have resulted from an interaction between two ejected shells without core collapse. The high conversion efficiency of kinetic to thermal energy may not require a SN-like energy budget for SN1994W.
Spectroscopic modeling of Type II supernovae (SNe) generally assumes steady-state. Following the recent suggestion of Utrobin & Chugai, but using the 1D non-LTE line-blanketed model atmosphere code CMFGEN, we investigate the effects of including time
-dependent terms that appear in the statistical and radiative equilibrium equations. We base our discussion on the ejecta properties and the spectroscopic signatures obtained from time-dependent simulations, investigating different ejecta configurations, and covering their evolution from one day to six weeks after shock breakout. Compared to equivalent steady-state models, our time-dependent models produce SN ejecta that are systematically over-ionized, affecting helium at one week after explosion, but ultimately affecting all ions after a few weeks. While the continuum remains essentially unchanged, time-dependence effects on observed spectral lines are large. At the recombination epoch, HI lines and NaID are considerably stronger and broader than in equivalent steady-state models, while CaII8500A is weakened. If time dependence is allowed for, the HeI lines at 5875A and 10830A appear about 3 times stronger at one week, and HeI10830A persists as a blue-shifted absorption feature even at 6 weeks after explosion. Time dependence operates through the energy gain from changes in ionization and excitation, and, perhaps more universally across SN types, from the competition between recombination and expansion, which in-turn, can be affected by optical-depth effects. Our time-dependent models compare well with observations of the low-luminosity low-velocity SN 1999br and the more standard SN 1999em, reproducing the Halpha line strength at the recombination epoch, and without the need for setting unphysical requirements on the magnitude of nickel mixing.
