A new class of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) has been discovered in recent years by optical/infrared surveys; these SNe suggest the presence of one or more extremely dense (~10^5-10^11 cm^-3) shells of circumstellar material (CSM) on 10^2-10^4 AU scales. We consider the collisions of the SN ejecta with these massive CSM shells as potential cosmic-ray (CR) accelerators. If ~10% of the SN energy goes into CRs, multi-TeV neutrinos and/or GeV-TeV gamma rays almost simultaneous with the optical/infrared light curves are detectable for SNe at <20-30 Mpc. A new type of coordinated multi-messenger search for such transients of duration ~1 - 10 months is required; these may give important clues to the physical origin of such SNe and to CR acceleration mechanisms.
@article{arxiv.1012.2834,
title = {New Class of High-Energy Transients from Crashes of Supernova Ejecta with Massive Circumstellar Material Shells},
author = {Kohta Murase and Todd A. Thompson and Brian C. Lacki and John F. Beacom},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.2834},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PRD, with extended descriptions. Conclusions unchanged