Journal Article

Hydrogen-rich supernovae beyond the neutrino-driven core-collapse paradigm

Nicholl, M., Fraser, M., Dessart, L., Pietrukowicz, P., Taddia, F., Smith, K. W., Sollerman, J., Pumo, M. L., Turatto, M., Mróz, P., Skowron, J., Elias-Rosa, N., Skowron, D., Sullivan, M., Kostrzewa-Rutkowska, Z., Soszyński, I., Cappellaro, E., Ulaczyk, K., Udalski, A., Szymański, M. K., Jerkstrand, A., Valenti, S., Young, D. R., Della Valle, M., Maguire, K., McCully, C., Terreran, G., Moriya, T. J., Wyrzykowski, Ł., Anderson, J. P., Pastorello, A., Pawlak, M., Poleski, R., Benetti, S., Gal-Yam, A., Kozłowski, S., Smartt, S. J., Yaron, O., Zampieri, L., Dimitriadis, G., Chen, T.-W., Kankare, E., Inserra, C., Howell, D. A.

2017

Overview

Type II supernovae are the final stage of massive stars (above 8  M ⊙ ) which retain part of their hydrogen-rich envelope at the moment of explosion. They typically eject up to 15 M ⊙ of material, with peak magnitudes of −17.5 mag and energies in the order of 10 51 erg, which can be explained by neutrino-driven explosions and neutron star formation. Here, we present our study of OGLE-2014-SN-073, one of the brightest type II supernovae ever discovered, with an unusually broad lightcurve combined with high ejecta velocities. From our hydrodynamical modelling, we infer a remarkable ejecta mass of 60 - 16 + 42 M ⊙ and a relatively high explosion energy of 12 .4 - 5 .9 + 13 .0 × 1 0 51 erg. We show that this object belongs, along with a very small number of other hydrogen-rich supernovae, to an energy regime that is not explained by standard core-collapse neutrino-driven explosions. We compare the quantities inferred by the hydrodynamical modelling with the expectations of various exploding scenarios and attempt to explain the high energy and luminosity released. We find some qualitative similarities with pair-instability supernovae, although the prompt injection of energy by a magnetar seems to be a viable alternative explanation for such an extreme event. The authors present a spectrophotometric and hydrodynamical study of supernova OGLE-2014-SN-073, which had remarkably high inferred ejecta mass and energy, potentially higher than can be explained with canonical core-collapse neutrino-driven explosions.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/33/34/864 / 639/766/34/867 / Astronomy / Astrophysics / Astrophysics and Cosmology / Energy / Explosions / High-energy astrophysics / Hydrogen / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Star & galaxy formation / Stars / Supernovae