Asymmetries in Type II-Plateau Supernovae: A Comparative Spectropolarimetric Study

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Type II-Plateau supernovae (SNe II-P) are the classic variety of core-collapse events that result from isolated, massive stars with thick hydrogen envelopes intact at the time of explosion. Their light curves show a distinct plateau, resulting from an enduring period of nearly constant luminosity as the hydrogen recombination wave recedes through the envelope and slowly exposes the inner layers of the ejecta.
Spectropolarimetry provides a direct probe of early-time supernova geometry, with higher degrees of polarization generally indicating greater departures from spherical symmetry. Studies of a handful of SNe II-P have found them to be essentially unpolarized at early times, but often with increasing polarization later on -- either during, or after, the plateau has ended. This has been interpreted as evidence for a substantially spherical geometry at early times that becomes more aspherical when the deepest layers of the ejecta are revealed. The most well-studied case is that of SN 2004dj (Leonard et al. 2006): Unpolarized throughout the plateau, SN 2004dj displayed a dramatic polarization spike during its rapid descent off the plateau, suggesting a strongly non-spherical explosion with the asphericity cloaked during the plateau by the massive, opaque, hydrogen envelope. Here, we compare and contrast these (and other) observations of SNe II-P with multi-epoch spectropolarimetry of SN 2004et, an SN II-P that exhibits strong, temporally increasing polarization only three weeks after explosion, nearly three months before the end of its plateau phase.

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