Unified one-dimensional simulations of gamma-ray line emission from type Ia supernovae

Abstract

The light curves of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are powered by gamma rays emitted by the decay of radioactive elements such as 56Ni and its decay products. These gamma rays are downscattered, absorbed, and eventually reprocessed into the optical emission that makes up the bulk of all SN observations. Detection of the gamma rays that escape the expanding star provide the only direct means to study this power source for SN Ia light curves. Unfortunately, disagreements between calculations for the gamma-ray lines have made it difficult to interpret any gamma-ray observations. Here we present a detailed comparison of the major gamma-ray line transport codes for a series of one-dimensional SN Ia models. Discrepancies in past results were due to errors in the codes, and the corrected versions of the seven different codes yield very similar results. This convergence of the simulation results allows us to infer more reliable information from the current set of gamma-ray observations of SNe Ia. The observations of SN 1986G, SN 1991T, and SN 1998bu are consistent with explosion models based on their classification: subluminous, superluminous, and normally luminous, respectively.