The SN 1987A Link to Others and Gamma-Ray Bursts

TL;DR

This paper proposes that SN 1987A originated from a double degenerate merger, linking it to gamma-ray bursts and millisecond pulsars, challenging existing models and suggesting a unified explanation for various astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a new interpretation of SN 1987A as a double degenerate merger, connecting it to gamma-ray bursts and millisecond pulsars, and questions the necessity of exotic models.

Findings

SN 1987A's features support a double degenerate merger origin.

Long-soft GRBs can result from jet impacts in such mergers.

Millisecond pulsars and some supernovae are consistent with DD merger origins.

Abstract

Early measurements of SN 1987A can be interpreted in light of a beam/jet (BJ), with a collimation factor >10,000, which impacted polar ejecta (PE) to produce the "Mystery Spot" (MS), ~24 lt-d away. Other details of SN 1987A suggest that it came from a merger of 2 stellar cores of a common envelope (CE) binary, i.e. a "double degenerate" (DD) SN. Even having to penetrate the CE, the BJ may have caused a long-soft (l)GRB upon hitting the PE, thus DD can produce lGRBs. Because DD must be the dominant merger/SN mechanism in elliptical galaxies (EGs), where only short, hard GRBs (sGRBs) have been observed, DD without CE or PE must also produce sGRBs, and thus NS-NS mergers may not make GRBs as we know them, and/or be as common as previously thought. Millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the non-core-collapsed globular clusters are also 99% DD-formed from WD-WD merger, consistent with their 2.10 ms minimum spin period, the 2.14 ms signal seen from SN 1987A, and sGRBs offset from the centers of EGs. The details of Ia's suggest that these are also DD, and the total thermonuclear disruption paradigm is now in serious doubt as well, a cause for concern in Ia Cosmology, because Ia's will appear to be Ic's when viewed from their DD merger poles, given sufficient matter above that lost to core-collapse. As a DD SN, 1987A appears to be the Rosetta Stone for 99% of SNe, GRBs and MSPs, including all recent nearby SNe except SN 1986J, and the more distant SN 2006gy. There is no need to invent exotica, such as "collapsars," to account for GRBs.