X-ray illumination of the ejecta of Supernova 1987A
Abstract
We present the late-time optical light curve of the ejecta of SN 1987A measured from HST imaging observations spanning the past 17 years. We find that the flux from the ejecta declined up to around year 2001, powered by the radioactive decay of 44Ti. Then the flux started to increase, more than doubling by the end of 2009. We show that the increase is the result of energy deposited by X-rays produced in the interaction with the circumstellar medium. We suggest that the change of the dominant energy input to the ejecta, from internal to external, marks the transition from supernova to supernova remnant. The details of the observations and the modelling are described in the accompanying supplementary information.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.2300,
title = {X-ray illumination of the ejecta of Supernova 1987A},
author = {J. Larsson and C. Fransson and G. Östlin and P. Gröningsson and A. Jerkstrand and C. Kozma and J. Sollerman and P. Challis and R. P. Kirshner and R. A. Chevalier and K. Heng and R. McCray and N. B. Suntzeff and P. Bouchet and A. Crotts and J. Danziger and E. Dwek and K. France and P. M. Garnavich and S. S. Lawrence and B. Leibundgut and P. Lundqvist and N. Panagia and C. S. J. Pun and N. Smith and G. Sonneborn and L. Wang and J. C. Wheeler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.2300},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
To appear in Nature on 23 June 2011 (already available online). 39 pages with 10 figures