Pith. sign in

REVIEW

The Whisper of a Whimper of a Bang: 2400 Days of the Type Ia SN 2011fe Reveals the Decay of ⁵⁵Fe

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2111.01144 v2 pith:PD6R32GS submitted 2021-11-01 astro-ph.HE astro-ph.SR

The Whisper of a Whimper of a Bang: 2400 Days of the Type Ia SN 2011fe Reveals the Decay of ⁵⁵Fe

classification astro-ph.HE astro-ph.SR
keywords odotdaysdecaydetonationlightmodelobservationsplace
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

We analyze new multi-filter Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry of the normal Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2011fe out to $\approx 2400~$days after maximum light, the latest observations to-date of a SN Ia. We model the pseudo-bolometric light curve with a simple radioactive decay model and find energy input from both $^{57}$Co and $^{55}$Fe are needed to power the late-time luminosity. This is the first detection of $^{55}$Fe in a SN Ia. We consider potential sources of contamination such as a surviving companion star or delaying the deposition timescale for $^{56}$Co positrons but these scenarios are ultimately disfavored. The relative isotopic abundances place direct constraints on the burning conditions experienced by the white dwarf (WD). Additionally, we place a conservative upper limit of $< 10^{-3}~M_\odot$ on the synthesized mass of $^{44}$Ti. Only 2 classes of explosion models are currently consistent with all observations of SN2011fe: 1) the delayed detonation of a low-$\rho_c$, near-$\rm{M}_{\rm{Ch}}$ ($1.2-1.3~M_\odot$) WD, or 2) a sub-$\rm{M}_{\rm{Ch}}$ ($1.0-1.1~M_\odot$) WD experiencing a thin-shell double detonation.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.