The Elusive Ultraviolet Light Echo of Supernova 1987A

Details The Elusive Ultraviolet Light Echo of Supernova 1987A The Elusive Ultraviolet Light Echo of Supernova 1987A

Jul 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21012315l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #123.15

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Supernova 1987A was the closest and brightest supernova of the last 400 years and as such provides critical tests of the Type II core collapse explosion mechanism. These models predict that a supersonic shock would have broken out through the photosphere of the progenitor star about one hour after core collapse, producing a brief flash of hard ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Unfortunately the supernova was discovered in the optical well after this UV flash from shock breakout had passed the Earth. We can still detect these UV photons, however, by taking advantage of the light echo scattered off from nearby dust clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
We will present our successes and failures to detect the UV light echo of SN 1987A. Initial attempts with the spectrograph on the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite appear to have been successful, producing a detection of positive excess light echo signal in 1995 when compared to the same echo-free location in 1996. We used these flux levels to predict the expected signal in the WFPC2 and STIS ultraviolet imaging cameras on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). While clearly detected in optical HST images, the UV images do not appear to record the light echo. We will discuss possible explanations for the differences in our attempts to detect and measure the UV flash from SN 1987A.

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