SN 2010mb: Direct Evidence for a Supernova Interacting with a Large Amount of Hydrogen-free Circumstellar Material

Creators: Ben-Ami, Sagi; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Mazzali, Paolo A.; Gnat, Orly; Modjaz, Maryam; Rabinak, Itay; Sullivan, Mark; Bildsten, Lars; Poznanski, Dovi; Yaron, Ofer; Arcavi, Iair; Bloom, Joshua S.; Horesh, Assaf; Kasliwal, Mansi M.; Kulkarni, Shrinivas R.; Nugent, Peter E.; Ofek, Eran O.; Perley, Daniel; Quimby, Robert; Xu, Dong

Abstract

We present our observations of SN 2010mb, a Type Ic supernova (SN) lacking spectroscopic signatures of H and He. SN 2010mb has a slowly declining light curve (LC) (~600 days) that cannot be powered by ^(56)Ni/^(56)Co radioactivity, the common energy source for Type Ic SNe. We detect signatures of interaction with hydrogen-free circumstellar material including a blue quasi-continuum and, uniquely, narrow oxygen emission lines that require high densities (~10^9 cm^(–3)). From the observed spectra and LC, we estimate that the amount of material involved in the interaction was ~3 M_☉. Our observations are in agreement with models of pulsational pair-instability SNe described in the literature.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 September 17; accepted 2014 February 16; published 2014 March 24. The authors thank C. Franson, S.E. Woosley and K. Maeda for useful discussions on the theoretical aspects of SN 2010mb. S.B. acknowledges support by a Ramon Fellowship from ISA. A.G. acknowledges support by grants from the ISF, BSF, GIF, Minerva, the FP7/ERC grant no 307260, the "Quantum-Universe" I-core program of the planning and budgeting committee and the ISF, and a Kimmel Investigator award. P.A.M. acknowledges financial support from INAF/PRIN 2011 and ASI. D.P. is supported by the Alon fellowship for outstanding young researchers, and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Chair for young scientists. M.S. acknowledges support from the Royal Society. J.S.B. was partially supported by an NSF-CDI grant. M.M.K. acknowledges generous support from the Hubble and Carnegie-Princeton Fellowships. E.O.O. acknowledges the Arye Dissentshik career development chair and a grant from the Israeli MOST. The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, provided staff, computational resources, and data storage for this project. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III Web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.

Attached Files

Published - 0004-637X_785_1_37.pdf

Submitted - 1309.6496v1.pdf

Files

0004-637X_785_1_37.pdf

Files (3.1 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
0004-637X_785_1_37.pdf md5:2e6d488f5b5124ef51ec2ccec80cca8b	1.8 MB	Preview Download
1309.6496v1.pdf md5:1ee34386d5100a2c78e46f19856160b6	1.3 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes