The Unique Type Ia Supernova 2000cx in NGC 524 Weidong Li1, Alexei V. Filippenko1, Elinor Gates2, Ryan Chornock1, Avishay Gal-Yam3,4, Eran O. Ofek3, Douglas C. Leonard5, Maryam Modjaz1, R. Michael Rich6, Adam G. Riess7, and Richard R. Treffers1 Email:
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[email protected] Received ; accepted arXiv:astro-ph/0107318v1 17 Jul 2001 1Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411. 2Lick Observatory, PO Box 82, Mount Hamilton, CA 95140. 3School of Physics and Astronomy, and the Wise Observatory, Tel Aviv University, Israel. 4Colton Fellow. 5Five College Astronomy Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003- 9305. 6Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095- 1562. 7Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218. –2– ABSTRACT We present extensive photometric and spectroscopic observations of the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2000cx in the S0 galaxy NGC 524, which reveal it to be peculiar. Photometrically, SN 2000cx is different from all known SNe Ia, and its light curves cannot be fit well by the fitting techniques currently available. There is an apparent asymmetry in the B-band peak, in which the premaximum brightening is relatively fast (similar to that of the normal SN 1994D), but the postmaximum decline is relatively slow (similar to that of the overluminous SN 1991T). The color evolution of SN 2000cx is also peculiar: the (B − V )0 color has a unique plateau phase and the (V − R)0 and (V − I)0 colors are very blue. Although the premaximum spectra of SN 2000cx are similar to those of SN 1991T-like objects (with weak Si II lines), its overall spectral evolution is quite different.