On the nature of rapidly fading Type II supernovae

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of rapidly fading Type II supernovae, revealing how progenitor characteristics and explosion parameters influence their light curves, especially the presence or absence of a luminosity bump.

Contribution

It demonstrates that progenitor and explosion parameters significantly affect the light-curve features of rapidly fading Type II supernovae, providing insights into their physical nature.

Findings

Rapidly fading supernovae originate from low-mass hydrogen-rich envelopes.

A light-curve bump occurs due to 56Ni decay heating, but can be suppressed by certain parameters.

Higher explosion energy and larger progenitor radius reduce the bump's prominence.

Abstract

It has been suggested that Type II supernovae with rapidly fading light curves (a.k.a. Type IIL supernovae) are explosions of progenitors with low-mass hydrogen-rich envelopes which are of the order of 1 Msun. We investigate light-curve properties of supernovae from such progenitors. We confirm that such progenitors lead to rapidly fading Type II supernovae. We find that the luminosity of supernovae from such progenitors with the canonical explosion energy of 1e51 erg and 56Ni mass of 0.05 Msun can increase temporarily shortly before all the hydrogen in the envelope recombines. As a result, a bump appears in their light curves. The bump appears because the heating from the nuclear decay of 56Ni can keep the bottom of hydrogen-rich layers in the ejecta ionized, and thus the photosphere can stay there for a while. We find that the light-curve bump becomes less significant when we make explosion energy larger (>~ 2e51 erg), 56Ni mass smaller (<~ 0.01 Msun), 56Ni mixed in the ejecta, or the progenitor radius larger. Helium mixing in hydrogen-rich layers makes the light-curve decline rates large but does not help reducing the light-curve bump. Because the light-curve bump we found in our light-curve models has not been observed in rapidly fading Type II supernovae, they may be characterized by not only low-mass hydrogen-rich envelopes but also higher explosion energy, larger degrees of 56Ni mixing, and/or larger progenitor radii than slowly fading Type II supernovae, so that the light-curve bump does not become significant.