Kevin France et al. 2011 ApJ 743 186 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/743/2/186
Kevin France1, Richard McCray2, Steven V. Penton1, Robert P. Kirshner3, Peter Challis3, J. Martin Laming4, Patrice Bouchet5, Roger Chevalier6, Peter M. Garnavich7, Claes Fransson8, Kevin Heng9, Josefin Larsson8, Stephen Lawrence10, Peter Lundqvist8, Nino Panagia11,12,13, Chun S. J. Pun14, Nathan Smith15, Jesper Sollerman8, George Sonneborn16, Ben Sugerman17, and J. Craig Wheeler18
Show affiliationsWe present the most sensitive ultraviolet observations of Supernova 1987A to date. Imaging spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope-Cosmic Origins Spectrograph shows many narrow (Δv ~ 300 km s–1) emission lines from the circumstellar ring, broad (Δv ~ 10-20 × 103 km s–1) emission lines from the reverse shock, and ultraviolet continuum emission. The high signal-to-noise ratio (>40 per resolution element) broad Lyα emission is excited by soft X-ray and EUV heating of mostly neutral gas in the circumstellar ring and outer supernova debris. The ultraviolet continuum at λ > 1350 Å can be explained by H I two-photon (2s 2 S 1/2-1s 2 S 1/2) emission from the same region. We confirm our earlier, tentative detection of N V λ1240 emission from the reverse shock and present the first detections of broad He II λ1640, C IV λ1550, and N IV] λ1486 emission lines from the reverse shock. The helium abundance in the high-velocity material is He/H = 0.14 ± 0.06. The N V/Hα line ratio requires partial ion-electron equilibration (Te /Tp
0.14-0.35). We find that the N/C abundance ratio in the gas crossing the reverse shock is significantly higher than that in the circumstellar ring, a result that may be attributed to chemical stratification in the outer envelope of the supernova progenitor. The N/C abundance may have been stratified prior to the ring expulsion, or this result may indicate continued CNO processing in the progenitor subsequent to the expulsion of the circumstellar ring.
circumstellar matter; shock waves; supernovae: individual (SN 1987A)
Issue 2 (2011 December 20)
Received 2011 August 26, accepted for publication 2011 November 4
Published 2011 December 2
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Kevin France et al. 2011 ApJ 743 186