The rise time of nearby type Ia supernovae

Adam G. Riess*, Alexei V. Filippenko, Weidong Li, Richard R. Treffers, Brian P. Schmidt, Yulei Qiu, Jingyao Hu, Mark Armstrong, Chuck Faranda, Eric Thouvenot, Christian Buil

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    193 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present calibrated photometric measurements of the earliest detections of nearby Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The set of ∼30 new, unfiltered CCD observations delineate the early rise behavior of SNe Ia 18 to 10 days before maximum. Using simple empirical models, we demonstrate the strong correlation between the rise time (i.e., the time between explosion and maximum), the postrise light-curve shape, and the peak luminosity. Using a variety of light-curve shape methods, we find the rise time to B maximum for an SN Ia with Δm15(B) = 1.1 mag and peak Mv = -19.45 mag to be 19.5 ± 0.2 days. We find that the peak brightness of SNe Ia is correlated with their rise time; SNe Ia that are 0.10 mag brighter at peak in the B band require 0.80 ± 0.05 days longer to reach maximum light. We determine the effects of several possible sources of systematic errors, but none of these significantly impacts the inferred rise time. We explore the degree to which comparisons between the observed and theoretically predicted rise times constrain SN Ia progenitor systems.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)2675-2688
    Number of pages14
    JournalAstronomical Journal
    Volume118
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 1999

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