Long Plateau Doth So: How Internal Heating Sources Affect Hydrogen-rich Supernova Light Curves

Some hydrogen-rich core-collapse supernovae (SNeIIP) exhibit evidence of a sustained energy source powering their light curves, resulting in a brighter and/or longer-lasting hydrogen recombination plateau phase. We present a semi-analytic SNIIP light-curve model that accounts for the effects of an a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tatsuya Matsumoto, Brian D. Metzger, Jared A. Goldberg
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2024-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad93a9
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Summary:Some hydrogen-rich core-collapse supernovae (SNeIIP) exhibit evidence of a sustained energy source powering their light curves, resulting in a brighter and/or longer-lasting hydrogen recombination plateau phase. We present a semi-analytic SNIIP light-curve model that accounts for the effects of an arbitrary internal heating source, considering as special cases ^56 Ni/ ^56 Co decay, a central engine (magnetar or accreting compact object), and shock interaction with a dense circumstellar disk. While a sustained internal power source can boost the plateau luminosity commensurate with the magnitude of the power, the duration of the recombination plateau can typically be increased by at most a factor of ∼2–3 compared to the zero-heating case. For a given ejecta mass and initial kinetic energy, the longest plateau duration is achieved for a constant heating rate at the highest magnitude that does not appreciably accelerate the ejecta. This finding has implications for the minimum ejecta mass required to explain particularly long-lasting SNe, such as iPTF14hls, and for confidently identifying rare explosions of the most massive hydrogen-rich (e.g., Population III) stars. We present a number of analytic estimates that elucidate the key features of the detailed model.
ISSN:1538-4357