An Analytic Bolometric Light Curve Model of Interaction-Powered Supernovae and its Application to Type IIn Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytic model for bolometric light curves of interaction-powered supernovae, specifically Type IIn, enabling the determination of ejecta and circumstellar medium properties from observed light curves.

Contribution

The paper presents a broadly applicable analytic model for supernova light curves powered by ejecta-CSM interaction, not limited to steady mass loss scenarios.

Findings

Model accurately fits observed light curves of three Type IIn supernovae.

Model constrains supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium properties.

Numerical simulations support the analytic model.

Abstract

We present an analytic model for bolometric light curves which are powered by the interaction between supernova ejecta and a dense circumstellar medium. This model is aimed at modeling Type IIn supernovae to determine the properties of their supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium. Our model is not restricted to the case of steady mass loss and can be applied broadly. We only consider the case in which the optical depth of the unshocked circumstellar medium is not high enough to affect the light curves. We derive the luminosity evolution based on an analytic solution for the evolution of a dense shell created by the interaction. We compare our model bolometric light curves to observed bolometric light curves of three Type IIn supernovae (2005ip, 2006jd, 2010jl) and show that our model can constrain their supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium properties. Our analytic model is supported by numerical light curves from the same initial conditions.