Explosions of blue supergiants from binary mergers for SN 1987A

Athira Menon, Victor Utrobin, Alexander Heger

Published 2018-06-21Version 1

Based on the work of Menon and Heger (2017), we present the bolometric light curves and spectra of the explosions of blue supergiant progenitors from binary mergers. We study SN 1987A and two other peculiar Type IIP supernovae: SN 1998A and SN 2006V. The progenitor models were produced using the stellar evolution code Kepler and then exploded using the 1D radiation hydrodynamic code Crab. The explosions of binary merger models exhibit an overall better fit to the light curve of SN 1987A than previous single star models, due to their lower helium-core masses, larger envelope masses, and smaller radii. The merger model that best matches the observational constraints of the progenitor of SN 1987A and the light curve, is a model with a radius of 37 solar radii, an ejecta mass of 20.6 solar masses, an explosion energy of 1.7 Bethe, a nickel mass of 0.073 solar masses, and a nickel mixing velocity of 3,000 km/s. This Model also works for SN 1998A and is comparable with earlier estimates from semi-analytic models. In the case of SN 2006V, however, a model with a radius of 150 solar radii and ejecta mass of 19.1 solar masses matches the light curve. These parameters are significantly higher than predictions from semi-analytic models for the progenitor of this supernova.