TY - JOUR
T1 - Constraining the Progenitor System of the Type Ia Supernova 2021aefx
AU - Hosseinzadeh, Griffin
AU - Sand, David J.
AU - Lundqvist, Peter
AU - Andrews, Jennifer E.
AU - Bostroem, K. Azalee
AU - Dong, Yize
AU - Janzen, Daryl
AU - Jencson, Jacob E.
AU - Lundquist, Michael
AU - Meza Retamal, Nicolas E.
AU - Pearson, Jeniveve
AU - Valenti, Stefano
AU - Wyatt, Samuel
AU - Burke, Jamison
AU - Howell, D. Andrew
AU - McCully, Curtis
AU - Newsome, Megan
AU - Gonzalez, Estefania Padilla
AU - Pellegrino, Craig
AU - Terreran, Giacomo
AU - Kwok, Lindsey A.
AU - Jha, Saurabh W.
AU - Strader, Jay
AU - Kundu, Esha
AU - Ryder, Stuart D.
AU - Haislip, Joshua
AU - Kouprianov, Vladimir
AU - Reichart, Daniel E.
N1 - Funding Information:
G.H. thanks A. L. Piro for sharing his SN Ia models. D.J.S. would like to thank P. Brown for help with planning the Swift follow-up observing campaign. Time-domain research by the University of Arizona team and D.J.S. is supported by NSF grants AST-1821987, 1813466, 1908972, and 2108032 and by the Heising-Simons Foundation under grant #2020-1864. P.L. acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council. J.E.A. is supported by the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini partnership of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea, and the United States of America. Research by Y.D., N.M., and S.V. is supported by NSF grants AST-1813176 and AST-2008108. The Australia Telescope Compact Array is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility 21
Funding Information:
SN 2021aefx joins the growing sample of SNe Ia with unexpected photometric evolution during the first few days after explosion and highlights the importance of early discovery and classification and high-cadence multiwavelength follow-up in confronting existing models. Importantly, these types of light curves will not be available from the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time at Vera C. Rubin Observatory with its nominal observing strategy (Ivezić et al. ). Specialized high-cadence surveys like DLT40, as well as robotic follow-up with facilities like Las Cumbres Observatory, will continue to be required to make progress in understanding SN Ia progenitors and explosions. which is funded by the Australian Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. We acknowledge the Gomeroi people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site. The ATCA data reported here were obtained under Programs C1303 (P.I.: P. Lundqvist) and C1473 (P.I.: S. D. Ryder). The SALT data reported here were taken as part of Rutgers University program 2021-1-MLT-007 (PI: S. W. Jha). J.S. acknowledges support from the Packard Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/7/1
Y1 - 2022/7/1
N2 - We present high-cadence optical and ultraviolet light curves of the normal Type Ia supernova (SN) 2021aefx, which shows an early bump during the first two days of observation. This bump may be a signature of interaction between the exploding white dwarf and a nondegenerate binary companion, or it may be intrinsic to the white dwarf explosion mechanism. In the case of the former, the short duration of the bump implies a relatively compact main-sequence companion star, although this conclusion is viewing-angle dependent. Our best-fit companion-shocking and double-detonation models both overpredict the UV luminosity during the bump, and existing nickel-shell models do not match the strength and timescale of the bump. We also present nebular spectra of SN 2021aefx, which do not show the hydrogen or helium emission expected from a nondegenerate companion, as well as a radio nondetection that rules out all symbiotic progenitor systems and most accretion disk winds. Our analysis places strong but conflicting constraints on the progenitor of SN 2021aefx; no current model can explain all of our observations.
AB - We present high-cadence optical and ultraviolet light curves of the normal Type Ia supernova (SN) 2021aefx, which shows an early bump during the first two days of observation. This bump may be a signature of interaction between the exploding white dwarf and a nondegenerate binary companion, or it may be intrinsic to the white dwarf explosion mechanism. In the case of the former, the short duration of the bump implies a relatively compact main-sequence companion star, although this conclusion is viewing-angle dependent. Our best-fit companion-shocking and double-detonation models both overpredict the UV luminosity during the bump, and existing nickel-shell models do not match the strength and timescale of the bump. We also present nebular spectra of SN 2021aefx, which do not show the hydrogen or helium emission expected from a nondegenerate companion, as well as a radio nondetection that rules out all symbiotic progenitor systems and most accretion disk winds. Our analysis places strong but conflicting constraints on the progenitor of SN 2021aefx; no current model can explain all of our observations.
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U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac7cef
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac7cef
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85134910228
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 933
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
M1 - L45
ER -