SUPERNOVA EXPLOSIONS OF SUPER-ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH STARS: MULTICOLOR LIGHT CURVES OF ELECTRON-CAPTURE SUPERNOVAE

Abstract

An electron-capture supernova (ECSN) is a core-collapse supernova (CCSN) explosion of a super-asymptotic giant branch (SAGB) star with a main-sequence mass $M_{\rm ms}\sim7-9.5M_\odot$. The explosion takes place in accordance with core bounce and subsequent neutrino heating and is a unique example successfully produced by first-principle simulations. This allows us to derive a first self-consistent multicolor light curves of a CCSN. Adopting the explosion properties derived by the first-principle simulation, i.e., the low explosion energy of $1.5\times10^{50}$ erg and the small $^{56}$Ni mass of $2.5\times10^{-3}M_\odot$, we perform a multigroup radiation hydrodynamics calculation of ECSNe and present multicolor light curves of ECSNe of SAGB stars with various envelope mass and hydrogen abundance. We demonstrate that a shock breakout has peak luminosity of $L\sim2\times10^{44}$ erg/s and can evaporate circumstellar dust up to $R\sim10^{17}$ cm for a case of carbon dust, that plateau luminosity and plateau duration of ECSNe are $L\sim10^{42}$ erg/s and $t\sim60-100$ days, respectively, and that a plateau is followed by a tail with a luminosity drop by $\sim4$ mag. The ECSN shows a bright and short plateau that is as bright as typical Type II plateau supernovae, and a faint tail that might be influenced by spin-down luminosity of a newborn pulsar. Furthermore, the theoretical models are compared with ECSN candidates: SN 1054 and SN 2008S. We find that SN 1054 shares the characteristics of the ECSNe. For SN 2008S, we find that its faint plateau requires an ECSN model with a significantly low explosion energy of $E\sim10^{48}$ erg.