RELISH-SNe: The Roman Extragalactic LIght-echo Survey of Historic Supernovae
| Program ID | 19102 |
|---|---|
| Science Category | Stellar Physics |
| Program Type | Analysis |
| Category | Small |
| Principal Investigator | Rodrigo Angulo |
| PI Institution | Johns Hopkins University |
| Co-Investigators |
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| Abstract | Current transient search surveys detect and categorize thousands of extragalactic supernovae (SNe), and this will dramatically accelerate in the era of LSST. These increased numbers provide valuable new information about the statistics of diverse SN types and they reveal exceedingly rare events, but connecting these to the underlying physical parameters is fraught with uncertainty and sometimes impossible. By contrast, centuries-old SN remnants provide our most detailed and direct measurements of the ejected mass, kinetic energy, element stratification, nucleosynthetic yield, explosion geometry, spatially resolved shock fronts, the surrounding environment, and the nature of any resulting compact remnant -- but the original SN explosions themselves were not subject to the scrutiny of spectroscopic analysis. Light Echoes (LEs) are the only way to bridge this gap. Combining the physical diagnostics of a collection of nearby remnants with LE spectra of the corresponding historical SN event allows us to make solid connections between the underlying physics and observed cosmic explosions. We propose to search for LEs in 14 galaxies of various sizes within 4 Mpc. These Roman-discovered LEs will allow us to associate the echoes with resolved supernova remnants; classify their centuries-old SN progenitors with echo spectroscopy using JWST (or with future ELTs); resolve 3D asymmetries in the historical explosion when multiple widely-distributed echoes are present; and constrain grain properties of the scattering dust filaments. |