Related papers: Supernova Explosions: Lessons from Spectropolarime…
Overwhelming evidence has accumulated in recent years that supernova explosions are intrinsically 3-dimensional phenomena with significant departures from spherical symmetry. We review the evidence derived from spectropolarimetry that has…
We briefly review the existing database of supernova spectropolarimetry, concentrating on recent data and on results from our group's research. Spectropolarimetry provides the only direct known probe of early-time supernova geometry. To…
Polarization has been detected at early times for all types of supernova, indicating that such systems result from or quickly develop some form of asymmetry. In addition, the detection of strong line polarization in supernovae is suggestive…
Supernova flux and polarization spectra bring vital information on the geometry, physical conditions, and composition structure of the ejected matter. For some supernovae the circumstellar matter is also probed by the observed spectra. Some…
An important and perhaps critical clue to the mechanism driving the explosion of massive stars as supernovae is provided by the accumulating evidence for asymmetry in the explosion. Indirect evidence comes from high pulsar velocities,…
Analysis of the polarization of light from supernovae can reveal the shape and distribution of matter ejected from exploding stars. Here we review the young field of Type Ia supernova spectropolarimetry and critically evaluate, and place in…
We present a brief summary of asphericity effects in thermonuclear and core collapse supernovae (SN), and how to distinguish the underlying physics by their observable signatures. Electron scattering is the dominant process to produce…
The conventional picture for the origin of the polarization of a supernova is based on a model of Thomson or resonance scattering of photons traveling through an aspherical supernova atmosphere. Positive detection of intrinsic polarization…
We present a compilation of the geometry measures acquired using optical and IR spectroscopy and optical spectropolarimetry to probe the explosion geometry of Type Ia SNe. Polarization measurements are sensitive to asymmetries in the plane…
We briefly review the young field of spectropolarimetry of core-collapse supernovae (SNe). Spectropolarimetry provides the only direct known probe of early-time supernova (SN) geometry. The fundamental result is that asphericity is a…
Fresh insights and powerful numerical tools are revitalizing the theoretical exploration of the supernova mechanism. The realization that the protoneutron star is Rayleigh-Taylor unstable at various times and radii and, hence, that a…
Core collapse supernovae(SN) are the final stages of evolution in massive stars during which the central region collapses. Recent explosion scenarios assumed that the ejection is due to energy deposition by neutrinos into the envelope but…
We study the multi-dimensional geometry of supernova (SN) explosions by means of spectropolarimetric observations of stripped-envelope SNe, i.e., SNe without a H-rich layer. We perform spectropolarimetric observations of 2 stripped-envelope…
The explosion processes of supernovae (SNe) are imprinted in their explosion geometries. Here, we study the intrinsic polarization of 15 hydrogen-rich core-collapse SNe and explore the relation with the photometric and spectroscopic…
We propose a bipolar jet model for supernova polarization. Light from the main component of the supernova (which we call the bulk supernova for short) scatters off electrons in the jets and is polarized: this polarized light is added to the…
Some supernova (SN) explosions show evidence for interaction with pre-existing non-spherically symmetric circumstellar medium (CSM) in their light curves, spectral line profiles, and polarization signatures. To better understand the…
Optical polarimetry is an effective way of probing the environment of supernova for dust. We acquired linear HST ACS/WFC polarimetry in bands $F475W$, $F606W$, and $F775W$ of the supernova (SN) 2014J in M82 at six epochs from $\sim$277 days…
Astronomical polarimetry is a powerful technique that can provide physical information sometimes difficult or impossible to obtain by any other type of observation. Almost every class of binary star can benefit from polarimetric…
The polarization of core-collapse supernovae shows that many if not all of these explosions must be strongly bi-polar. The most obvious way to produce this axial symmetry is by the imposition of a jet as an intrinsic part of the explosion…
We show that when a supernova explodes, a nearby pulsar signal goes through a very specific change. The observed period first changes smoothly, then is followed by a sudden change in the time derivative. A stable millisecond pulsar can…