Supernova Shock Breakout/Emergence Detection Predictions for a Wide-field X-Ray Survey

Abstract

There are currently many large-field surveys that are operational and are being planned including the powerful Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. These surveys will increase the number and diversity of transients dramatically. However, for some transients, like supernovae (SNe), we can gain more understanding by directed observations (e.g., shock breakout and γ-ray detections) than by simply increasing the sample size. For example, the initial emission from these transients can be a powerful probe of these explosions. Upcoming ground-based detectors are not ideally suited to observing the initial emission (shock emergence) of these transients. These observations require a large field-of-view X-ray mission with a UV follow-up within the first hour of shock breakout. The emission in the first 1 hr to even 1 day provides strong constraints on the stellar radius and asymmetries in the outer layers of stars, the properties of the circumstellar medium (e.g., inhomogeneities in the wind for core-collapse SNe and accreting companions in thermonuclear SNe), and the transition region between these two areas. This paper describes a simulation for the number of SNe that could be seen by a large field-of-view lobster-eye X-ray and UV observatory.

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