A Model for Type-IIP Supernovae with Medium Recombination Approximation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new model for Type-IIP supernovae light curves using a medium recombination approximation, improving accuracy by addressing previous simplifications and matching observations effectively.

Contribution

It presents a novel medium recombination approximation model that enhances the understanding of supernova light curves by solving previous limitations and incorporating a more realistic recombination wave speed.

Findings

The new model fits observed light curves well.

The approximation improves the accuracy of temperature and luminosity evolution.

Addressed the initial hump problem in supernova light curve modeling.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new light-curve model for Type-IIP supernovae (SNe IIP) with an approximation of medium recombination. Recombination of hydrogen that takes place in the envelope is believed highly affect the light curves of SNe IIP. The propagation of the recombination wave through the expanding envelope is crucial to determine the temperature and the bolometric luminosity. Several approximations were made in previous works to determine the recombination front, which plays a role as the pseudo-photosphere. With the Eddington boundary condition, we let the actual photosphere be the boundary to determine the time evolution of temperature profile of the envelope and calculate the bolometric luminosity. A new approximation on the speed of recombination wave is introduced to get a closer result to the real situation. We abandon the non-self-consistent approximations made in former works and solve the initial hump problem in the previous attempt for the slow recombination approximation. The produced light curves show the necessity of this approximation and fit the observation well.