Analytical Expressions For Light-Curves Of Ordinary And Superluminous Supernovae Type Ia

TL;DR

This paper derives simple analytical formulas to model the light-curves of both ordinary and superluminous Type Ia supernovae, linking their brightness evolution to physical parameters and explaining key empirical relations.

Contribution

It introduces a straightforward analytic master formula that accurately describes the bolometric light-curves of Type Ia supernovae, including superluminous variants, based on minimal assumptions.

Findings

The formula fits observed light-curves well.

Reproduces the Phillips' relation for standardization.

Explains the brightness enhancement in superluminous SNeIa.

Abstract

Supernovae of type Ia (SNeIa) can be produced by the explosion of slowly-rotating carbon-oxygen white dwarfs whose mass increases beyond a critical value by mass accretion. Collision with circumstellar material during their photospheric and early nebular phase can enhance the bolometric luminosity of otherwise ordinary SNeIa to become superluminous. A few simplifying assumptions lead to a simple analytic master formula, which describes quite well the bolometric light-curves of ordinary SNeIa and supeluminous SNeIa in terms of few initial physical parameters. Other main properties of SNeIa, including the empirical 'brighter-slower' Phillips' relation that was used to standardize ordinary SNeIa as distance indicators and led to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe, are reproduced