SpectAcLE: An Improved Method for Modeling Light Echo Spectra
Abstract
Light echoes give us a unique perspective on the nature of supernovae and non-terminal stellar explosions. Spectroscopy of light echoes can reveal details on the kinematics of the ejecta, probe asymmetry, and reveal details on its interaction with circumstellar matter, thus expanding our understanding of these transient events. However, the spectral features arise from a complex interplay between the source photons, the reflecting dust geometry, and the instrumental setup and observing conditions. In this work we present an improved method for modeling these effects in light echo spectra, one that relaxes the simplifying assumption of a light curve weighted sum, and instead estimates the true relative contribution of each phase. We discuss our logic, the gains we obtain over light echo analysis method(s) used in the past, and prospects for further improvements. Lastly, we show how the new method improves our analysis of echoes from Tycho's supernova (SN 1572) as an example.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2310.01501,
title = {SpectAcLE: An Improved Method for Modeling Light Echo Spectra},
author = {Roee Partoush and Armin Rest and Jacob E. Jencson and Dovi Poznanski and Ryan J. Foley and Charles D. Kilpatrick and Jennifer E. Andrews and Rodrigo Angulo and Carles Badenes and Federica B. Bianco and Alexei V. Filippenko and Ryan Ridden-Harper and Xiaolong Li and Steve Margheim and Thomas Matheson and Knut A. G. Olsen and Matthew R. Siebert and Nathan Smith and Douglas L. Welch and A. Zenteno},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.01501},
year = {2023}
}