Supernovae Shock Breakout/Emergence Detection Predictions for a Wide-Field X-ray Survey

TL;DR

This paper predicts the detection rates of supernova shock breakouts using a large field-of-view X-ray and UV observatory, emphasizing the importance of early observations for understanding stellar explosions.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation framework to estimate supernova detection rates with a proposed wide-field X-ray and UV survey mission.

Findings

Predicted supernova detection rates for the proposed observatory.

Highlights the importance of early X-ray/UV observations for supernova physics.

Provides constraints on stellar and circumstellar properties from early emission data.

Abstract

There are currently many large-field surveys operational and planned including the powerful Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. These surveys will increase the number and diversity of transients dramatically. However, for some transients, like supernovae (SNe), we can gain more understanding by directed observations (e.g. shock breakout, $\gamma$-ray detections) than by simply increasing the sample size. For example, the initial emission from these transients can be a powerful probe of these explosions. Upcoming ground-based detectors are not ideally suited to observe the initial emission (shock emergence) of these transients. These observations require a large field-of-view X-ray mission with a UV follow up within the first hour of shock breakout. The emission in the first one hour to even one day provides strong constraints on the stellar radius and asymmetries in the outer layers of stars, the properties of the circumstellar medium (e.g. inhomogeneities in the wind for core-collapse SNe, accreting companion in thermonuclear SNe), and the transition region between these two. This paper describes a simulation for the number of SNe that could be seen by a large field of view lobster eye X-ray and UV observatory.