Identifying the Origin and Heating Mechanism of Warm Dust in the Supernova Environment

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

Recent observations suggest that Type IIn supernovae exhibit late-time infrared emission from warm dust more than typical core-collapse events. Mid-infrared wavelengths span the peak of the thermal spectral energy distribution from dust with temperatures ranging 100 - 1000 K, providing strong constraints on the dust mass, temperature, and, thereby, the luminosity. Here, we show how to adopt these quantities as useful diagnostics for disentangling the various origins and heating mechanisms of warm dust in the supernova environment, which, once determined, offer useful clues regarding the circumstellar medium, supernova progenitor, and explosion dynamics. The techniques are applied to a sample of 68 Type IIn supernovae surveyed by Spitzer. The sample represents all known Type IIn supernovae within 250 Mpc from the past 10 years that remained unobserved by Spitzer more than 100 days post-discovery. The detection of late-time emission from nine targets (>10%) nearly doubles the database of existing mid-infrared observations of Type IIn supernovae. In most cases, a circumstellar shock echo from pre-existing dust likely dominates the observed late-time infrared flux. The powering luminosity likely originates from optical emission generated by continuous shock interaction with the surrounding dense circumstellar medium, as opposed to the peak supernova luminosity. The associated mass loss rates are consistent with Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) progenitors.

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