Lightcurve Features of Magnetar-Powered Superluminous Supernovae with Gravitational-Wave Emission and High-Energy Leakage

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model to study how gravitational-wave emission and high-energy leakage influence the lightcurves of superluminous supernovae powered by magnetars, revealing complex effects on their brightness evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic framework to analyze the combined impact of gravitational waves and high-energy photon escape on SLSNe lightcurves, incorporating neutron star physics and ejecta properties.

Findings

Early-time luminosities are suppressed by combined effects.

Late-time emission is enhanced due to energy leakage.

Neutron star equation of state significantly influences the lightcurve.

Abstract

Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a distinct class of stellar explosions, exhibiting peak luminosities 10-100 times brighter than those of normal SNe. Their extreme luminosities cannot be explained by the radioactive decay of $^{56}\mathrm{Ni}$ and its daughter $^{56}\mathrm{Co}$ alone. Consequently, models invoking newly formed millisecond magnetars have been widely proposed, capable of supplying additional energy through magnetic dipole radiation. For these rapidly rotating magnetars, however, gravitational-wave (GW) emission may also contribute significantly to the spin-down, particularly during their early evolutionary stages. While high-energy photons initially remain trapped within the optically thick ejecta, they will eventually escape as the ejecta becomes transparent during the expansion, thereby influencing the late-time lightcurve. In this work, we adopt an analytical framework to systematically explore the combined effects of GW emission and high-energy leakage on the lightcurve of SLSNe. Compared to scenarios that neglect these processes, we find that for magnetars with initial spin periods of millisecond, the combined influence suppresses early-time luminosities but enhances late-time emission. We further investigate the effects of the neutron-star equation of state to the lightcurve, GW emission efficiency, ejecta mass, and other relevant quantities. Our results highlight the complex interplay between GW-driven spin-down and radiative transport in shaping the observable features of SLSNe, offering new insights into diagnosing the nature of their central engines.