SOFIA Observations of SN 2010jl: Another Non-Detection of the 9.7 $\mu$m Silicate Dust Feature

Abstract

We present photometric observations from the {\it Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA)} at 11.1 $\mu$m of the Type IIn supernova (SN IIn) 2010jl. The SN is undetected by {\it SOFIA}, but the upper limits obtained, combined with new and archival detections from {\it Spitzer} at 3.6 \& 4.5 $\mu$m allow us to characterize the composition of the dust present. Dust in other Type IIn SNe has been shown in previous works to reside in a circumstellar shell of material ejected by the progenitor system in the few millenia prior to explosion. Our model fits show that the dust in the system shows no evidence for the strong, ubiquitous 9.7 $\mu$m feature from silicate dust, suggesting the presence of carbonaceous grains. The observations are best fit with 0.01-0.05 $\msun$ of carbonaceous dust radiating at a temperature of $\sim 550-620$ K. The dust composition may reveal clues concerning the nature of the progenitor system, which remains ambiguous for this subclass. Most of the single star progenitor systems proposed for SNe IIn, such as luminous blue variables, red supergiants, yellow hypergiants, and B[e] stars, all clearly show silicate dust in their pre-SN outflows. However, this post-SN result is consistent with the small sample of SNe IIn with mid-IR observations, none of which show signs of emission from silicate dust in their IR spectra.

Accepted by ApJ Letters. 6 pages, produced using emulateapj

References in corpus (5)

• High Density Circumstellar Interaction in the Luminous Type IIn SN 2010jl: The first 1100 days
• Rapid formation of large dust grains in the luminous supernova SN 2010jl
• SN 2008S: A Cool Super-Eddington Wind in a Supernova Impostor
• Ejecta, Dust, and Synchrotron Radiation in B0540-69.3: A More Crab-Like Remnant than the Crab
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• A decade of ejecta dust formation in the Type IIn SN 2005ip
• Disentangling Dust Components in SN 2010jl: The First 1400 Days
• Supernova 2014C: ongoing interaction with extended circumstellar material with silicate dust
• The Slow Demise of the Long-Lived SN 2005ip
• Observational limits on the early-time dust mass in SN1987A
• Constraints on the Progenitor of SN 2010jl and Pre-Existing Hot Dust in its Surrounding Medium
• The Carnegie Supernova Project II. Observations of SN 2014ab possibly revealing a 2010jl-like SN IIn with pre-existing dust
• Dust Models for the Extinction of Type IIn Supernova SN 2010jl