A self-consistent analytical magnetar model: The luminosity of $\gamma$-ray burst supernovae is powered by radioactivity

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model for magnetar-powered supernovae associated with gamma-ray bursts, revealing that additional radioactive heating is necessary to explain observed luminosities and providing detailed parameters for a specific ULGRB/SN event.

Contribution

The study introduces a self-consistent analytical model combining magnetar energy injection with radioactive heating to explain GRB-SN luminosities, validated on ULGRB 111209A / SN 2011kl.

Findings

Magnetar energy alone underestimates SN luminosity by a factor of 3-17.

Radioactive heating is essential to fully power LGRB-SN luminosities.

Model parameters for ULGRB 111209A / SN 2011kl are consistent with previous estimates.

Abstract

We present an analytical model that considers energy arising from a magnetar central engine. The results of fitting this model to the optical and X-ray light curves (LCs) of five long-duration $\gamma$-ray bursts (LGRBs) and two ultra-long GRBs (ULGRBs), including their associated supernovae (SNe), show that emission from a magnetar central engine cannot be solely responsible for powering an LGRB-SN. While the early AG-dominated phase can be well described with our model, the predicted SN luminosity is underluminous by a factor of $3-17$. We use this as compelling evidence that additional sources of heating must be present to power an LGRB-SN, which we argue must be radioactive heating. Our self-consistent modelling approach was able to successfully describe all phases of ULGRB 111209A / SN 2011kl, from the early afterglow to the later SN, where we determined for the magnetar central engine a magnetic field strength of $1.1-1.3\times10^{15}$ G, an initial spin period of $11.5-13.0$ ms, a spin-down time of $4.8-6.5$ d, and an initial energy of $1.2-1.6\times10^{50}$ erg. These values are entirely consistent with those determined by other authors. The luminosity of a magnetar-powered SN is directly related to how long the central engine is active, where central engines with longer durations give rise to brighter SNe. The spin-down timescales of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are of order months to years, which provides a natural explanation as to why SN 2011kl was less luminous than SLSNe that are also powered by emission from magnetar central engines.