A Spitzer Space Telescope study of SN 2003gd: Still no direct evidence that core-collapse supernovae are major dust factories

Creators: Meikle, W. P. S.; Mattila, S.; Pastorello, A.; Gerardy, C. L.; Kotak, R.; Sollerman, J.; Van Dyk, S. D.; Farrah, D.; Filippenko, A. V.; Höflich, P.; Lundqvist, P.; Pozzo, M.; Wheeler, J. C.

Abstract

We present a new, detailed analysis of late-time mid-infrared observations of the Type II-P supernova (SN) 2003gd. At about 16 months after the explosion, the mid-IR flux is consistent with emission from 4 x 10^(-5) M☉ of newly condensed dust in the ejecta. At 22 months emission from pointlike sources close to the SN position was detected at 8 and 24 μm. By 42 months the 24 μm flux had faded. Considerations of luminosity and source size rule out the ejecta of SN 2003gd as the main origin of the emission at 22 months. A possible alternative explanation for the emission at this later epoch is an IR echo from preexisting circumstellar or interstellar dust. We conclude that, contrary to the claim of Sugerman and coworkers, the mid-IR emission from SN 2003gd does not support the presence of 0.02 M☉ of newly formed dust in the ejecta. There is, as yet, no direct evidence that core-collapse supernovae are major dust factories.

Additional Information

© 2007 American Astronomical Society. Received 2007 February 27; accepted 2007 May 9. We thank the referee for valuable comments and suggestions. We are grateful to B. Sugerman and the SEEDS team for making their proprietary data available to us. We thank J. Scalo and L. Pan for helpful discussions. We also thank M. Regan for providing details about the SINGS-processed images, and B. Ercolano and M. Barlow for discussions about dust/IR emission models. S.M. was supported by funds from the Participating Organisations of EURYI and the EC Sixth Framework Programme. C.L.G. was supported in part by PPARC grant PPA/G/S/2003/00040. R.K. was supported in part by EU RTN grant HPRN-CT-2002-00303. M.P. was supported by PPARC Grant PPA/G/S/2001/00512. J.C.W. and A.V.F. were supported in part by NSF grants AST 04-06740 and AST 06-07485, respectively. This work is based on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award (3248) issued by JPL/Caltech.

Attached Files

Published - MEIapj07.pdf

Files

MEIapj07.pdf

Files (242.6 kB)

Name	Size	Download all
MEIapj07.pdf md5:ca8b0efc541525d94f8dca2fc19f655b	242.6 kB	Preview Download

Additional details

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