45 research outputs found
Late-Time Photometry of Type Ia Supernova SN 2012cg Reveals the Radioactive Decay of Co
Seitenzahl et al. (2009) have predicted that roughly three years after its
explosion, the light we receive from a Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) will come
mostly from reprocessing of electrons and X-rays emitted by the radioactive
decay chain , instead of positrons from the
decay chain that dominates the SN light at
earlier times. Using the {\it Hubble Space Telescope}, we followed the light
curve of the SN Ia SN 2012cg out to days after maximum light. Our
measurements are consistent with the light curves predicted by the contribution
of energy from the reprocessing of electrons and X-rays emitted by the decay of
Co, offering evidence that Co is produced in SN Ia explosions.
However, the data are also consistent with a light echo mag fainter
than SN 2012cg at peak. Assuming no light-echo contamination, the mass ratio of
Ni and Ni produced by the explosion, a strong constraint on any
SN Ia explosion model, is , roughly twice Solar. In
the context of current explosion models, this value favors a progenitor white
dwarf with a mass near the Chandrasekhar limit.Comment: Updated to reflect the final version published by ApJ. For a video
about the paper, see https://youtu.be/t3pUbZe8wq
Uniformity of V minus Near Infrared Color Evolution of Type Ia Supernovae, and Implications for Host Galaxy Extinction Determination
From an analysis of SNe 1972E, 1980N, 1981B, 1981D, 1983R, 1998bu, 1999cl,
and 1999cp we find that the intrinsic V-K colors of Type Ia SNe with
multi-color light curve shape (MLCS) parameter -0.4 < Delta < +0.2 suggest a
uniform color curve. V-K colors become bluer linearly with time from roughly
one week before B-band maximum until one week after maximum, after which they
redden linearly until four weeks after maximum. V-H colors exhibit very similar
color evolution. V-J colors exhibit slightly more complex evolution, with
greater scatter. The existence of V minus near infrared color relations allows
the construction of near infrared light curve templates that are an improvement
on those of Elias et al. (1985).
We provide optical BVRI and infrared JHK photometry of the Type Ia supernovae
1999aa, 1999cl, and 1999cp. SN 1999aa is an overluminous "slow decliner" (with
Delta = -0.47 mag). SN 1999cp is a moderately bright SN unreddened in its host.
SN 1999cl is extremely reddened in its host. The V minus near infrared colors
of SN 1999cl yield A_V = 2.01 +/- 0.11 mag. This leads to a distance for its
host galaxy (M 88) in agreement with other distance measurements for members of
the Virgo cluster.Comment: 57 pages, 13 postscript figures, to appear in the August 20, 2000,
issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Contains updated references and a number
of minor corrections dealt with when page proofs were correcte
Optical and Infrared Photometry of the Type Ia Supernovae 1999da, 1999dk, 1999gp, 2000bk, and 2000ce
We present BVRI photometry of the Type Ia supernovae 1999da, 1999dk, 1999gp,
2000bk, and 2000ce, plus infrared photometry of three of these. These objects
exhibit the full range of decline rates of Type Ia supernovae. Combined optical
and infrared data show that families of V - infrared color curves can be used
to derive the host extinction (A_V) of these objects. Existing data do not yet
allow us to construct these loci for all color indices and supernova decline
rates, but the V-K color evolution is sufficiently uniform that it allows the
determination of host extinction over a wide range of supernova decline rates
to an accuracy of roughly +/- 0.1 mag. We introduce a new empirical parameter,
the mean I-band flux 20 to 40 days after maximum light, and show how it is
directly related to the decline rate.Comment: 53 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journal (scheduled for the September 2001 issue
Supernova Cosmology and the ESSENCE project
The proper usage of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as distance indicators has
revolutionized cosmology, and added a new dominant component to the energy
density of the Universe, dark energy. Following the discovery and confirmation
era, the currently ongoing SNe Ia surveys aim to determine the properties of
the dark energy. ESSENCE is a five year ground-based supernova survey aimed at
finding and characterizing 200 SNe Ia in the redshift domain z=[0.2-0.8]. The
goal of the project is to put constraints on the equation of state parameter,
w, of the dark energy with an accuracy of <10%. This paper presents these
ongoing efforts in the context of the current developments in observational
cosmology.Comment: Submitted to EPS1
Spectroscopy of High-Redshift Supernovae from the ESSENCE Project: The First Two Years
We present the results of spectroscopic observations of targets discovered
during the first two years of the ESSENCE project. The goal of ESSENCE is to
use a sample of ~200 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at moderate redshifts (0.2 < z
< 0.8) to place constraints on the equation of state of the Universe.
Spectroscopy not only provides the redshifts of the objects, but also confirms
that some of the discoveries are indeed SNe Ia. This confirmation is critical
to the project, as techniques developed to determine luminosity distances to
SNe Ia depend upon the knowledge that the objects at high redshift are the same
as the ones at low redshift. We describe the methods of target selection and
prioritization, the telescopes and detectors, and the software used to identify
objects. The redshifts deduced from spectral matching of high-redshift SNe Ia
with low-redshift SNe Ia are consistent with those determined from host-galaxy
spectra. We show that the high-redshift SNe Ia match well with low-redshift
templates. We include all spectra obtained by the ESSENCE project, including 52
SNe Ia, 5 core-collapse SNe, 12 active galactic nuclei, 19 galaxies, 4 possibly
variable stars, and 16 objects with uncertain identifications.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures (many with multiple parts), submitted to A
CfA4: Light Curves for 94 Type Ia Supernovae
We present multi-band optical photometry of 94 spectroscopically-confirmed
Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) in the redshift range 0.0055 to 0.073, obtained
between 2006 and 2011. There are a total of 5522 light curve points. We show
that our natural system SN photometry has a precision of roughly 0.03 mag or
better in BVr'i', 0.06 mag in u', and 0.07 mag in U for points brighter than
17.5 mag and estimate that it has a systematic uncertainty of 0.014, 0.010,
0.012, 0.014, 0.046, and 0.073 mag in BVr'i'u'U, respectively. Comparisons of
our standard system photometry with published SN Ia light curves and comparison
stars reveal mean agreement across samples in the range of ~0.00-0.03 mag. We
discuss the recent measurements of our telescope-plus-detector throughput by
direct monochromatic illumination by Cramer et al (in prep.). This technique
measures the whole optical path through the telescope, auxiliary optics,
filters, and detector under the same conditions used to make SN measurements.
Extremely well-characterized natural-system passbands (both in wavelength and
over time) are crucial for the next generation of SN Ia photometry to reach the
0.01 mag accuracy level. The current sample of low-z SN Ia is now sufficiently
large to remove most of the statistical sampling error from the dark energy
error budget. But pursuing the dark-energy systematic errors by determining
highly-accurate detector passbands, combining optical and near-infrared (NIR)
photometry and spectra, using the nearby sample to illuminate the population
properties of SN Ia, and measuring the local departures from the Hubble flow
will benefit from larger, carefully measured nearby samples.Comment: 43 page