Absolute Magnitude Distribution And Light Curves Of Gamma-Ray Burst Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper analyzes supernovae associated with gamma-ray bursts, extracting their light curves to determine their brightness and explosion parameters, revealing they tend to have higher energies and masses than typical supernovae.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of gamma-ray burst supernovae light curves and estimates their physical parameters, highlighting differences from non-GRB supernovae.

Findings

GRB supernovae are generally brighter than similar supernovae without GRBs.

They have significantly higher kinetic energies and ejected masses.

The brightness difference may be influenced by selection effects.

Abstract

Photometry data were collected from the literature and analyzed for supernovae that are thought to have a gamma-ray burst association. There are several gamma-ray burst afterglow light curves that appear to have a supernova component. For these light curves, the supernova component was extracted and analyzed. A supernova light curve model was used to help determine the peak absolute magnitudes as well as estimates for the kinetic energy, ejected mass and nickel mass in the explosion. The peak absolute magnitudes are, on average, brighter than those of similar supernovae (stripped-envelope supernovae) that do not have a gamma-ray burst association, but this can easily be due to a selection effect. However, the kinetic energies and ejected masses were found to be considerably higher, on average, than those of similar supernovae without a gamma-ray burst association.