Flare activities of the central engine of a superluminous supernova

Yun-Wei Yu, Shao-Ze Li

Published 2016-07-03Version 1

For a recent discovered super-luminous supernova (SLSN) SN 2015bn, some significant undulations appear in its light curve after its first peak, while the basic trends of the underlying light curve can well be explained with a continuous energy injection from the central engine (probably, a spinning-down neutron star). We propose that these unusual undulations are probably caused by some late intermittent pulse energy injections, which indicates that some late energetic flare activities have happened on the central engine of this SLSN. The similarity between the SLSN engines with the central engines of gamma-ray bursts, whose flare activities have been widely confirmed by observations, suggests that these two different phenomena could have some intrinsic connections and even a common astrophysical origin.