Eextaemely Lumnous Supernova 2006gy at Late Phase: Detection of Optical Emission From Supernova

Kawabata Koji

Tanaka Masaomi

Maeda Keiichi

Hattori Takashi

Nomoto Ken'ichi

Tominaga Nozomu

Yamanaka Masayuki

Astrophysical Journal

Supernova (SN) 2006gy is an extremely luminous Type IIn SN characterized by the bright peak magnitude M-R similar to -22 mag and its long duration. The mechanism giving rise to its huge luminosity is still unclear. We performed optical spectroscopy and photometry of SN 2006gy at late time, similar to 400 days after the explosion, with the Subaru/FOCAS in a good seeing condition. We carefully extracted the SN component, although there is an ambiguity because of the contamination by bright nucleus of the host galaxy. We found that the SN faded by similar to 3 mag from similar to 200 to similar to 400 days after the explosion (i.e., by similar to 5 mag from peak to similar to 400 days) in R band. The overall light curve is marginally consistent with the Ni-56 heating model, although the flattening around 200 days suggests the optical flux declined more steeply between similar to 200 and similar to 400 days. The late time spectrum was quite peculiar among all types of SNe. It showed many intermediate width (similar to 2000 km s(-1) FWHM) emission lines, e. g., [Fe II], [Ca II], and Ca II. The absence of the broad [O I] 6300, 6364 line and weakness of [Fe II] and [Ca II] lines compared with Ca II IR triplet would be explained by a moderately high electron density in the line emitting region. This high-density assumption seems to be consistent with the large amount of ejecta and low expansion velocity of SN 2006gy. The H alpha line luminosity was as small as similar to 1 x 10(39) erg s(-1), being comparable with those of normal Type II SNe at similar epochs. Our observation indicates that the strong circumstellar medium interaction had almost finished by similar to 400 days. If the late time optical flux is purely powered by radioactive decay, at least M(Ni-56) similar to 3 M-circle dot should be produced at the SN explosion. In the late phase spectrum, there were several unusual emission lines at 7400 angstrom-8800 angstrom and some of them might be due to Ti or Ni synthesized at the explosion.

supernovae

general

supernovae

individual (SN 2006gy)

Astronomy. Space sciences [ 440 ]

eng

Iop Publishing Ltd

[ISSN] 0004-637X

[DOI] 10.1088/0004-637X/697/1/747

[NCID] AA00553275

[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/697/1/747