Radiative Transfer Modeling of an SN 1987A Light Echo—AT 2019xis

Abstract

Abstract We use a Monte Carlo radiative transfer model (MCRTM) to simulate the UBVRI light curves, images, and linear polarization of a light echo from supernova SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using various dust cloud shapes, sizes, and optical properties. We compare the theoretical simulations to the observations of AT 2019xis, a light echo detected at a large angular distance (4.′05) from SN 1987A. We estimate the size and optical thickness of the dust cloud based on the simulation results and the observations of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE-IV) Transient Detection System (OTDS) I-band light curve. The mass of the dust cloud is calculated using the estimated size, optical thickness, and extinction coefficient. If the dust cloud is assumed to correspond to a gas-to-dust ratio of 300, the total mass of the dust cloud is approximately 7.8–9.3 M ⊙. Based on these theoretical models, we show that the morphological shapes of the light echoes in the wavelength range of or shorter than the U band to be very different from those in the longer wavelength bands, and the difference carries important information on the early UV radiation of SN 1987A.