2017/01/20 by C. S. Kochanek
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Binary number #Circumstellar dust #Cosmic dust #Dust lane #Ejecta #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Physics #Star formation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supernova #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stx1813
10 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRAS
arxiv created 2017/01/20 · openalex publication_date 2017/07/18 · arxiv updated 2017/08/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Supernovae (SNe) should both frequently have a binary companion at death and form significant amounts of dust. This implies that any binary companion must lie at the centre of an expanding dust cloud and the variable obscuration of the companion as the SN remnant expands will both unambiguously mark the companion and allow the measurement of the dust content through absorption rather than emission for decades after the explosion. However, sufficiently hot and luminous companions can suppress dust formation by rapidly photoionizing the condensible species in the ejecta. This provides a means of reconciling the Type IIb SNe Cas A, which lacks a luminous companion and formed a significant amount of dust (Md ≳ 0.1 M⊙), with the Type IIb SNe 1993J and 2011dh, both of which appear to have a luminous companion and to have formed a negligible amount of dust (Md ≲ 10−3 M⊙). The Crab and SN 1987A are consistent with this picture, as both lack a luminous companion and formed significant amounts of dust. An unrecognized dependence of dust formation on the properties of binary companions may help to explain why the evidence for dust formation in SNe appears so contradictory.