CHANDRA OBSERVATIONS OF SN 1987A: THE SOFT X-RAY LIGHT CURVE REVISITED

• Main Authors: Helder, E. A. (Author), Broos, P. S. (Author), Dewey, Dan (Contributor), Dwek, E. (Author), McCray, Richard (Author), Park, S. (Author), Racusin, J. L. (Author), Zhekov, S. A. (Author), Burrows, David N. (Author)
• Other Authors: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Physics/American Astronomical Society, 2015-02-12T21:35:27Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 We report on the present stage of SN 1987A as observed by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. We reanalyze published Chandra observations and add three more epochs of Chandra data to get a consistent picture of the evolution of the X-ray fluxes in several energy bands. We discuss the implications of several calibration issues for Chandra data. Using the most recent Chandra calibration files, we find that the 0.5-2.0 keV band fluxes of SN 1987A have increased by ~6 × 10[superscript -13] erg s[superscript -1[ cm[superscript -2] per year since 2009. This is in contrast with our previous result that the 0.5-2.0 keV light curve showed a sudden flattening in 2009. Based on our new analysis, we conclude that the forward shock is still in full interaction with the equatorial ring.