2011/03/31 by R. Amanullah, Rahman Amanullah, A. Goobar +1 · 40 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Circumstellar dust #Cosmic dust #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Light curve #Line-of-sight #Physics #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supernova #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/735/1/20
published in The Astrophysical Journal 735(1), 20 (IOP Publishing) · 11 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 2011/05/12 · openalex publication_date 2011/06/09 · arxiv updated 2015/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
It has been suggested that multiple scattering on circumstellar dust could explain the non-standard reddening observed in the line of sight to Type Ia supernovae. In this work, we use Monte Carlo simulations to examine how the scattered light would affect the shape of optical light curves and spectral features. We find that the effects on the light curve widths, apparent time evolution of color excess, and blending of spectral features originating at different photospheric velocities should allow for tests of the circumstellar dust hypothesis on a case by case basis. Our simulations also show that for circumstellar shells with radii r = 10 16 –10 19 cm, the light curve modifications are well described by the empirical Δ m 15 parameter and intrinsic color variations of order σ BV = 0.05–0.1 arise naturally. For large shell radii an excess light curve tail is expected in B -band, as observed in, e.g., SN2006X.