Thermal and non-thermal emission from circumstellar interaction

TL;DR

This paper reviews how supernova ejecta interacting with circumstellar material produces thermal and non-thermal emissions, providing insights into shock physics, progenitor evolution, and supernova observations across multiple wavelengths.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive review of physical processes in circumstellar interaction and their observational signatures, emphasizing radio and X-ray data analysis.

Findings

Understanding of shock physics and particle acceleration.

Correlation between circumstellar interaction and supernova types.

Insights into progenitor star evolution.

Abstract

It has become clear during the last decades that the interaction between the supernova ejecta and the circumstellar medium is playing a major role both for the observational properties of the supernova and for understanding the evolution of the progenitor star leading up to the explosion. In addition, it provides an opportunity to understand the shock physics connected to both thermal and non-thermal processes, including relativistic particle acceleration, radiation processes and the hydrodynamics of shock waves. This chapter has an emphasis on the information we can get from radio and X-ray observations, but also their connection to observations in the optical and ultraviolet. We first review the different physical processes involved in circumstellar interaction, including hydrodynamics, thermal X-ray emission, acceleration of relativistic particles and non-emission processes in the radio and X-ray ranges. Finally, we discuss applications of these to different types of supernovae.