Unveiling Physical Processes in Type Ia Supernovae With a Laue Lens Telescope

TL;DR

This paper proposes a Laue lens gamma-ray telescope designed to observe the 847 keV line from Type Ia supernovae, enabling direct insights into their explosion physics and improving detection capabilities for detailed spectroscopy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Laue lens telescope concept with a focal Compton detector, enhancing sensitivity to gamma-ray lines from supernovae for better understanding of their explosion mechanisms.

Findings

Detects dozens of SNe Ia per year out to 40 Mpc

Achieves 3-sigma sensitivity of 1.8×10⁻⁶ ph/s/cm² in 1Ms

Enables detailed time-evolved spectroscopy of supernovae

Abstract

We present in this paper a focusing gamma-ray telescope that has only one goal: addressing the true nature of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia). This telescope is based on a Laue lens focusing a 100-keV wide energy band centered on 847 keV, which correspond to a bright line emitted by the decay chain of 56Ni, a radioactive element massively produced during SNe Ia events. Spectroscopy and light curve measurements of this gamma-ray line allow direct measurement of the underlying explosion physics and dynamics, and thus discriminate among the competing models. However reaching this goal the observation of several events with high detection significance, meaning more powerful telescopes. The telescope concept we present in this paper is composed of a Laue lens held 30 m apart from the focal instrument (a compact Compton telescope) by an extensible mast. With a 3-sigma sensitivity of 1.8\times10-6 ph/s/cm2 in the 3%-broadened line at 847 keV (in 1Ms observation time), dozens of SNe Ia could be detected per year out to \sim40 Mpc, enough to perform detailed time-evolved spectroscopy on several events each year. This study took place in the framework of the DUAL mission proposal which was recently submitted to ESA for the third medium class mission of the Cosmic Vision program.