Supernova Explosions inside Carbon-Oxygen Circumstellar Shells

TL;DR

This paper models supernova explosions within dense, hydrogen-free carbon-oxygen shells to explain luminous supernovae like SN2010gx, showing that moderate explosion energies and specific shell properties can account for observed brightness.

Contribution

It introduces supernova models with dense carbon-oxygen circumstellar shells, providing explanations for luminous supernovae without hydrogen.

Findings

Luminous supernovae can be explained by explosions in dense C-O shells.

Moderate explosion energies (2-3 foe) are sufficient.

Shell properties (mass 3-5 Msun, radius ~10^{16} cm) are critical.

Abstract

Motivated by a recent discovery of Supernova 2010gx and numerical results of Fryer et al.(2010), we simulate light curves for several type I supernova models, enshrouded by dense circumstellar shells, or "super-wind", rich in carbon and oxygen and having no hydrogen. We demonstrate that the most luminous events like SN2010gx can be explained by those models at moderate explosion energies (2-3) foe if the total mass of SN ejecta and a shell is (3-5) Msun and the radius of the shell is ~10^{16} cm.