ASPCS
 
Back to Volume
Paper: Light Echoes of SNe in the LMC
Volume: 363, The Nature of V838 Mon and its Light Echo
Page: 146
Authors: Rest, A.; Suntzeff, R. C.; Smith, K. O.
Abstract: In recent years, light echoes have been discovered around some nearby extragalactic supernovae well after the explosion, most notably the light echoes from SN 87A. However, to date no light echoes of historical SNe of Galactic or extragalactic origin have been discovered. In the SuperMACHO project, we have imaged the bar of the LMC repeatedly and used an automated pipeline to subtract point-spread function matched template images from the recent epoch images. The resulting difference images are remarkably clean of the constant (in time) stellar background and are ideal for searching for variable objects. Using these difference images, we have mapped the extensive light echo complex around SN 87A further out, and deeper, than has been previously possible. Besides the SN 87A light echoes, we found three other groups of light echoes associated with known supernova remnants (SNRs). These SNRs are three of the six youngest in the LMC, and are classified as likely SN Ia based on X-ray data (Hughes et al. 1995).
Back to Volume