The Rise Times and Bolometric Light Curve of SN 1994D: Constraints on Models of Type Ia Supernovae

Abstract

Using the published photometry and an empirical model of the temporal evolution of the apparent magnitudes in the UBVRI passbands, we have constructed a continuous optical bolometric, or ``quasi-bolometric'', light curve of the well-observed Type Ia supernova SN 1994D. The optical bolometric light curve is found to have a maximum luminosity of about $8.8\times 10^{42}\times (\frac{D}{13.7Mpc}{)}^2$ erg/s, which is reached $\sim 18$ days after the explosion. In addition, the optical bolometric light curve exhibits an inflection, or ``shoulder'', about $25$ days after maximum. This inflection corresponds to the secondary maximum observed in all filter light curves redder than $B$. The individual filter curves have rise times similar to that of the optical bolometric light curve; other Type Ia supernovae are found to have similar rise times. Our fits indicate that the peak bolometric luminosity and the maxima in the B, V, and R light curves all occur within a day of one another. These results can be used to place constraints on theoretical models of Type Ia events. For example, all current theoretical models predict rise times to peak luminosity which are significantly shorter than that estimated for SN 1994D.

12 pages, 1 color PostScript figure, special style file (aaspp4) included. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters. A PostScript version with embedded figure is available at http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~vacca

References in corpus (1)

• Explosion Models for Type Ia Supernovae: A Comparison with Observed Light Curves, distances, H_o and q_o

Cited by in corpus (24)

• Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae
• The Risetime of Nearby Type Ia Supernovae
• Type Ia Supernovae and the Hubble Constant
• Supernova 2002bo: inadequacy of the single parameter description
• The Carnegie Supernova Project I: analysis of stripped-envelope supernova light curves
• A Preliminary Indication of Evolution of Type Ia Supernovae from their Risetimes
• Constraints on the Progenitor Systems of Type Ia Supernovae
• Bolometric Corrections for optical light curves of Core-collapse Supernovae
• The Rise Time of Type Ia Supernovae from the Supernova Legacy Survey
• Lower limits on the Hubble Constant from models of Type Ia Supernovae
• On the High--Velocity Ejecta of the Type Ia Supernova 1994D
• Optical and Infrared Photometry of the Unusual Type Ia Supernova 2000cx
• Photometric Observations of the Type Ia SN 2002er in UGC 10743
• NLTE Synthetic Spectral Fits to the Type Ia Supernova 1994D in NGC 4526
• Spectrophotometric templates for core collapse supernovae and their application in simulations of time-domain surveys
• A review of type Ia supernova spectra
• The Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background from Supernovae
• Probing type Ia supernova properties using bolometric light curves from the Carnegie Supernova Project and the CfA Supernova Group
• Interpreting Flux from Broadband Photometry
• Supernovae and Cosmology
• Studying the small scale ISM structure with supernovae
• X- and Gamma-Ray Flashes from Type Ia Supernovae?
• Optical Light Curves of Supernovae
• Investigating the observational properties of Type Ib supernova SN 2017iro