TYPE II SUPERNOVAE AS DISTANCE INDICATORS by Mario
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TYPE II SUPERNOVAE AS DISTANCE INDICATORS by Mario Andres´ Hamuy A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2 0 0 1 2 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an ad- vanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, pro- vided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for ex- tended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to my advisor Phil Pinto for his invaluable support, friendship, and wisdom, to Dave Arnett and Adam Burrows for their input during the preparation of this dissertation, to the astronomers of Steward Observatory for the first-class education they provided me, and to its employees for making the atmosphere so relaxed and helping me to bring my feet to Earth. My enrollment in the Ph.D. program at The University of Arizona would not have been possible without the encouragement of Jose´ Maza, Mark Phillips, Nick Suntzeff, and Bob Williams, to whom I feel deeply grateful. This dissertation would not have been possible without the data obtained through the Calan/T´ ololo and SOIRS collaborations. I acknowledge the generous work and invalu- able help of Roberto Antezana, Roberto Aviles,´ Pablo Candia, Ricardo Covarrubias, Luis Gonzalez,´ Valentin Ivanov, Jose´ Maza, Amaya Moro-Martin, Cesar´ Muena, Mauricio Navarrete, Isabel Perez,´ Mark Phillips, Aimee Hungerford, Bob Schommer, Chris Smith, Lou Strolger, Nick Suntzeff, Geraldo Valladares, Lisa Wells, and Marina Wischnjewsky. A significant fraction of the data included in this dissertation comes from unpublished observations obtained by several colleagues. I thank them for their great generosity, a rare virtue in the competitive world of modern astronomy. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the help and collaboration from Massimo Della Valle, Andrea Pastorello, Enrico Capallaro, and Massimo Turatto, for allowing me to use their spectra and photom- etry obtained in the course of the ESO Supernova Key Project, and from Mark Phillips and Sofia Kirhakos for making available their extensive dataset of SN 1986L. A special thank must go to Ron Eastman for providing his model spectra, to Riccardo Giovanelli for his unpublished Tully-Fisher distances, J. G. Cuby for his IR atmospheric transmission spectrum, R. Maiolino for his solar spectrum, and to many astronomers who contributed with their telescope times to obtain valuable observations for this project. I am very grateful to Las Campanas and Cerro Calan´ observatories for allocating an office and providing generous operational support to the SOIRS program during 1999- 2000. Likewise, I am grateful to the ESO, CTIO, and Las Campanas visitor support staffs for their assistance in the course of our observing runs. Also, I would like to thank the IRAF team for their prompt response to all of my software questions. My first three years of Ph.D. studies were funded by the Gemini fellowship of the National Science Foundation and Fundacion´ Andes (grants GF-1002-95, GF-1002-96, GF-1002-97). Also, I thank the generous financial support from Phil Pinto and Dave Arnett that permitted me to complete my Ph.D. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has made use of and the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. 5 DEDICATION A mi familia, especialmente a mis padres. A mis amigos, especialmente a Gonzalo. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES . 8 LIST OF TABLES . 10 ABSTRACT . 12 1 INTRODUCTION ¡ ¢ £ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ £ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ 14 1.1 Historical background . 14 1.2 Supernova models . 15 1.3 Supernovae as distance indicators . 16 1.4 Goals of this dissertation . 18 2 OBSERVATIONS AND REDUCTIONS ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ £ ¢ ¡ ¢ 20 2.1 Introduction . 20 2.2 Sample of supernovae . 20 2.2.1 The Calan/T´ ololo survey . 20 2.2.2 The SOIRS survey . 21 2.2.3 Other supernovae . 22 2.3 Data reductions . 22 2.3.1 Optical photometry . 22 2.3.2 Additional optical photometry . 30 2.3.3 Infrared photometry . 32 2.3.4 Spectroscopy . 34 2.4 Summary . 38 3 THE EXPANDING PHOTOSPHERE METHOD £ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ ¡ ¢ £ ¡ ¢ ¡ ¢ ¢ 75 3.1 Introduction . 75 3.2 The physics of SN II light curves . 75 3.3 Basic ideas of EPM . 77 3.4 The measurement of angular radii . 79 3.5 The determination of dust extinction in the host galaxies . 82 3.6 The measurement of physical radii . 89 3.7 The determination of errors . 95 3.8 Results . 95 3.8.1 SN 1986L . 95 3.8.2 SN 1987A . 99 3.8.3 SN 1988A . 103 3.8.4 SN 1990E . 106 3.8.5 SN 1990K . 109 3.8.6 SN 1991al . 112 3.8.7 SN 1992af . 115 3.8.8 SN 1992am . 117 3.8.9 SN 1992ba . 120 3.8.10 SN 1993A . 123 3.8.11 SN 1993S . 126 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS — Continued 3.8.12 SN 1999br . 129 3.8.13 SN 1999ca . 132 3.8.14 SN 1999cr . 135 3.8.15 SN 1999eg . 138 3.8.16 SN 1999em . 141 3.8.17 SN 2000cb . 146 3.9 Summary . 149 4 THE PERFORMANCE OF THE EXPANDING PHOTOSPHERE METHOD ¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤ 208 4.1 Introduction . 208 4.2 Internal precision . 208 4.3 The sensitivity to dust . 210 4.4 Error estimates for EPM distances . 213 4.5 External comparisons . 213 4.5.1 Comparison with other EPM distances . 213 4.5.2 Comparison with the cosmic distance ladder . 215 4.6 Future applications of the expanding photosphere method . 219 4.7 Summary . 222 5 ON THE INTRINSIC PROPERTIES OF TYPE II SUPERNOVAE ¤¡¤¢¤¡¤£¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤ 228 5.1 Introduction . 228 5.2 Absolute magnitudes . 228 5.3 Bolometric corrections . 229 5.4 Effective temperature-color relation . 236 5.5 Physical analysis of the plateau phase . 236 5.6 Physical analysis of the radioactive phase . 246 5.7 Type II supernovae as standard candles . 250 5.8 Summary . 253 6 CONCLUSIONS ¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤£¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤£¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤£¤¡¤¢¤¡¤ 258 A THE COMPUTATION OF SYNTHETIC MAGNITUDES ¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤£¤ 261 ¥ B THE BAND PHOTOMETRIC SYSTEM ¤¢¤¡¤£¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤£¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤ 267 REFERENCES ¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤£¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¢¤¡¤¢¤¡¤£¤¢¤ 269 8 LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 ¦ band CCD images of the 12 SNe II (part 1) . 24 2.2 ¦ band CCD images of the 12 SNe II (part 2) . 25 2.3 ¦ band CCD images of the 12 SNe II (part 3) . 26 2.4 § band light curves for the 12 CT/SOIRS SNe II (part 1) . 27 2.5 § band light curves for the 12 CT/SOIRS SNe II (part 2) . 28 2.6 § band light curves for 5 SNe II . 31 2.7 ¨©§ ¦ ¢ light curves of SN 1999em . 33 2.8 Early-time spectra of seven SNe II . 35 2.9 Spectra of 15 SNe II at day 35 . 36 2.10 Optical/IR spectra of SN 1999em . 37 © § 3.1 relation for filter . 80 3.2 Color-Temperature relations . 81 3.3 Dilution factors . 83 3.4 § !¦ #" color curve of SNe II (part 1) . 85 3.5 § !¦ #" color curve of SNe II (part 2) . 86 3.6 $¦%& #" color curve of SNe II (part 1) . 87 3.7 $¦%& #" color curve of SNe II (part 2) . 88 3.8 Cross-correlation test . 91 3.9 Example of cross-correlation . 93 3.10 Expansion velocities for SN 1999em . 94 3.11 Photometry and velocities for SN 1986L . 96 3.12 EPM solution for SN 1986L . 97 3.13 Photometry and velocities for SN 1987A . 100 3.14 EPM solution for SN 1987A . 101 3.15 Photometry and velocities for SN 1988A . 104 3.16 EPM solution for SN 1988A . 105 3.17 Photometry and velocities for SN 1990E . 107 3.18 EPM solution for SN 1990E . 108 3.19 Photometry and velocities for SN 1990K . 110 3.20 EPM solution for SN 1990K . 111 3.21 Photometry and velocities for SN 1991al . ..