The Nature and Geometry of the Light Echo from SN 2006X

Abstract

We report on the discovery of the geometry producing the light echo emanating from Supernova 2006X, a nearby but underluminous Type Ia in M100 (= NGC 4321). This offers a rare chance to study the environment of a Type Ia supernova. Contrary to previous reports, there is little evidence of a circumstellar component in the light echo morphology or in the light curve of the unresolved SN point source. Instead, the obvious and dominant echo contribution comes from what is probably a relatively thin sheet of material some 26 pc in front of SN 2006X. Of the four known Type Ia light echoes, three show no evidence of a circumstellar echo and the fourth needs to be confirmed. We consider other evidence for circumstellar material around SN Ia, which may be rare.

17 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (6)

• Optical and Near-Infrared Observations of the Highly Reddened, Rapidly Expanding Type Ia Supernova 2006X in M100
• Supernova 2002ic: the collapse of a stripped-envelope, massive star in a dense medium ?
• On the fraction of intermediate-mass close binaries that explode as type-Ia supernovae
• Late Light Curves of Normal Type Ia Supernovae
• Circumstellar Na I and Ca II lines of type Ia supernovae in symbiotic scenario
• Upper limit for circumstellar gas around the Type Ia SN 2000cx

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• Detection of a Light Echo from the Otherwise Normal SN 2007af
• A Snapshot Survey of Nearby Supernovae with the Hubble Space Telescope
• The Effects of Circumstellar Dust Scattering on the Light Curves and Polarizations of Type Ia Supernovae
• On the Time Variation of Dust Extinction and Gas Absorption for Type~Ia Supernovae Observed Through Non-uniform Interstellar Medium
• Light Echoes of Historic Transients