How much radioactive nickel does ASASSN-15lh require?

Kozyreva, Alexandra; Hirschi, Raphael; Blinnikov, Sergey; den Hartogh, Jacqueline

Abstract

The discovery of the most luminous supernova ASASSN-15lh triggered a shock-wave in the supernova community. The three possible mechanisms proposed for the majority of other superluminous supernovae do not produce a realistic physical model for this particular supernova. In the present study we show the limiting luminosity available from a nickel-powered pair-instability supernova. We computed a few exotic nickel-powered explosions with a total mass of nickel up to 1500 solar masses. We used the hydrostatic configurations prepared with the GENEVA and MESA codes, and the STELLA radiative-transfer code for following the explosion of these models. We show that 1500 solar masses of radioactive nickel is needed to power a luminosity of 2x10^45 erg/s. The resulting light curve is very broad and incompatible with the shorter ASASSN-15lh time-scale. This rules out a nickel-powered origin of ASASSN-15lh. In addition, we derive a simple peak luminosity - nickel mass relation from our data, which may serve to estimate of nickel mass from observed peak luminosities.

Citation

Kozyreva, A., Hirschi, R., Blinnikov, S., & den Hartogh, J. (2016). How much radioactive nickel does ASASSN-15lh require?. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 459(1), L21–L25. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw036

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 2, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Mar 16, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: May 26, 2023
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 459
• Issue: 1
• Pages: L21–L25
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw036
• Keywords: radiative transfer, stars, evolution, massive, supernovae, general, individual, ASASSN-15h
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw036