Friday, February 17, 2012

1202.3437 (Gilad Svirski et al.)

Optical to X-rays supernovae light curves following shock breakout through a thick wind    [PDF]

Gilad Svirski, Ehud Nakar, Re'em Sari
Recent supernovae (SNe) detections have motivated renewed interest in SN shock breakouts from stars surrounded by thick winds, including predictions of observable hard X-rays. Wind breakouts on timescales of a day or longer are currently the most probable for detection. Here we study the signal that follows such events, assuming a wind density profile $\propto r^{-2}$, starting from the breakout of the radiation mediated shock and tracing the evolution of the collisionless shock which forms afterwards. The emission contains two spectral components - soft (optical/UV) and hard (X-rays and possibly soft gamma-rays). We find that during the breakout, the soft component temperature can vary significantly from one event to another (10^4-10^6 K), where events with longer breakout time, t_bo, are generally softer. The hard component is always a minute fraction, ~10^-4, of the breakout emission, and its fraction of the total luminosity rises quickly afterwards, gaining dominance at ~10-50 t_bo. The spectral evolution of the soft and hard components, as well as the prospects for detection of X-rays, depend mostly on the breakout time. In early breakouts (t_bo <~ 20 d for typical parameters) both components become harder after the breakout, and the hard component becomes dominant while the luminosity is still comparable to the breakout luminosity. In late breakouts (t_bo >~ 80 d for typical parameters) the soft component becomes softer with time and the hard component becomes dominant only after the luminosity has dropped significantly. In terms of prospects for X-ray and soft gamma-ray detections, it is best to observe 100-500 days after explosions with breakout timescales between a week and a month.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.3437

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