Discovery of the Fastest Early Optical Emission from Overluminous SN Ia 2020hvf: A Thermonuclear Explosion within a Dense Circumstellar Environment

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of the earliest optical flash from an overluminous Type Ia supernova, SN 2020hvf, revealing a dense circumstellar environment likely caused by a super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf explosion.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of a rapid early flash in an overluminous SN Ia, linking it to CSM interaction and proposing a super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf as the progenitor.

Findings

Early flash observed within 5 hours of explosion

Interaction with dense circumstellar material explains the flash

SN 2020hvf likely originated from a super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf

Abstract

In this Letter we report a discovery of a prominent flash of a peculiar overluminous Type Ia supernova, SN 2020hvf, in about 5 hours of the supernova explosion by the first wide-field mosaic CMOS sensor imager, the Tomo-e Gozen Camera. The fast evolution of the early flash was captured by intensive intranight observations via the Tomo-e Gozen high-cadence survey. Numerical simulations show that such a prominent and fast early emission is most likely generated from an interaction between $0.01~M_{\odot}$ circumstellar material (CSM) extending to a distance of $\sim$$10^{13}~\text{cm}$ and supernova ejecta soon after the explosion, indicating a confined dense CSM formation at the final evolution stage of the progenitor of SN 2020hvf. Based on the CSM-ejecta interaction-induced early flash, the overluminous light curve, and the high ejecta velocity of SN 2020hvf, we suggest that the SN 2020hvf may originate from a thermonuclear explosion of a super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf ("super-$M\rm_{Ch}$ WD"). Systematical investigations on explosion mechanisms and hydrodynamic simulations of the super-$M\rm_{Ch}$ WD explosion are required to further test the suggested scenario and understand the progenitor of this peculiar supernova.