Spectral modeling of nebular-phase supernovae

Abstract

Massive stars live fast and die young. They shine furiously for a few million years, during which time they synthesize most of the heavy elements in the universe in their cores. They end by blowing themselves up in a powerful explosion known as a supernova. During this process, the core collapses to a neutron star or a black hole, while the outer layers are expelled with velocities of thousands of kilometers per second. The resulting fireworks often outshine the entire host galaxy for many weeks. The explosion energy is eventually radiated away, but powering of the newborn nebula continues by radioactive isotopes synthesized in the explosion. The ejecta are now quite transparent, and we can see the material produced in the deep interiors of the star. To interpret the observations, detailed spectral modeling is needed. This thesis aims to develop and apply state-of-the-art computational tools for interpreting and modeling supernova observations in the nebular phase. This requires calculation of the physical conditions throughout the nebula, including non-thermal processes from the radioactivity, thermal and statistical equilibrium, as well as radiative transport. The inclusion of multi-line radiative transfer, which we compute with a Monte Carlo technique, represents one of the major advancements presented in this thesis.