Kevin France, Richard McCray, Steven V. Penton, Robert P. Kirshner, Peter Challis, J. Martin Laming, Patrice Bouchet, Roger Chevalier, Claes Fransson, Peter M. Garnavich, Kevin Heng, Josefin Larsson, Stephen Lawrence, Peter Lundqvist, Nino Panagia, Chun S. J. Pun, Nathan Smith, Jesper Sollerman, George Sonneborn, Ben Sugerman, J. Craig Wheeler
We present the most sensitive ultraviolet observations of Supernova 1987A to
date. Imaging spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope-Cosmic Origins
Spectrograph shows many narrow (dv \sim 300 km/s) emission lines from the
circumstellar ring, broad (dv \sim 10 -- 20 x 10^3 km/s) emission lines from
the reverse shock, and ultraviolet continuum emission. The high signal-to-noise
(> 40 per resolution element) broad LyA emission is excited by soft X-ray and
EUV heating of mostly neutral gas in the circumstellar ring and outer supernova
debris. The ultraviolet continuum at \lambda > 1350A can be explained by HI
2-photon emission from the same region. We confirm our earlier, tentative
detection of NV \lambda 1240 emission from the reverse shock and we present the
first detections of broad HeII \lambda1640, CIV \lambda1550, and NIV]
\lambda1486 emission lines from the reverse shock. The helium abundance in the
high-velocity material is He/H = 0.14 +/- 0.06. The NV/H-alpha line ratio
requires partial ion-electron equilibration (T_{e}/T_{p} \approx 0.14 - 0.35).
We find that the N/C abundance ratio in the gas crossing the reverse shock is
significantly higher than that in the circumstellar ring, a result that may be
attributed to chemical stratification in the outer envelope of the supernova
progenitor. The N/C abundance ratio may have been stratified prior to the ring
expulsion, or this result may indicate continued CNO processing in the
progenitor subsequent to the expulsion of the circumstellar ring.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.1735
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