The effects of a magnetar engine on the gamma-ray burst-associated supernovae: Application to double-peaked SN 2006aj

Abstract

A millisecond magnetar engine has been widely suggested to exist in gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomena, in view of its substantial influences on the GRB afterglow emission. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the magnetar engine on the supernova (SN) emission which is associated with long GRBs and, specifically, confront the model with the observational data of SN 2006aj/GRB 060218. SN 2006aj is featured by its remarkable double-peaked ultraviolet-optical (UV-opt) light curves. By fitting these light curves, we demonstrate that the first peak can be well accounted for by the breakout emission of the shock driven by the magnetar wind, while the primary supernova emission is also partly powered by the energy injection from the magnetar. The magnetic field strength of the magnetar is constrained to be ∼ 10 15 G, which is in good agreement with the common results inferred from the afterglow emission of long GRBs. In more detail, it is further suggested that the UV excess in the late emission of the supernova could also be due to the leakage of the non-thermal emission of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN), if some special conditions can be satisfied. The consistency between the model and the SN 2006aj observation indicates that the magnetar engine is likely to be ubiquitous in the GRB phenomena and even further intensify their connection with the phenomena of superluminous supernovae.

Magnetar Wind-Driven Shock Breakout Emission after Double Neutron Star Mergers: The Effect of the Anisotropy of the Merger Ejecta

“…As a rsult, a non-thermal emission component can appear in the late phase of the mergernova emission, which have been found in many mergernova candidates including AT2017gfo [26,29,[31][32][33][34]. Meanwhile, the breakout of the FS could also cause a rapid soft X-ray flare prior to the primary mergernova emission [25], which is similar to the situation discovered in the supernovae that are suggested to be driven by a magnetar too [36][37][38]. Generally, this shock breakout (SBO) precursor emission of a mergernova is likely to be outshone by more luminous afterglow emission of the associated GRB.…”

“…In contrast to the highly-beamed GRB emission, this SBO emission can in principle be detected at arbitrary directions, which therefore provides a valuable signal for test the existence of the remnant magnetar. Additionally, in view of the similarity of the mergernovae and superluminous supernovae, such a SBO signal can also be expected to appear in these supernova emission, probably with a relatively longer timescale [37,38].…”

Magnetar Engines in Fast Blue Optical Transients and Their Connections with SLSNe, SNe Ic-BL, and lGRBs

“…In comparison, the peak luminosity of SNe Ic-BL is relatively lower, which reduces the energy requirement and, in principle, makes the radioactive power model available. However, considering the continuous transition between the different phenomena, it could still be natural to suggest that the emission of a fraction of SNe Ic-BL including GRB-SNe is also partly powered by the magnetar engine, although the majority of the spin-down energy of the magnetar has been converted to the kinetic energy of the SN ejecta (e.g., Lin et al 2021;Zhang et al 2022).…”

Magnetar Engines in Fast Blue Optical Transients and Their Connections with SLSNe, SNe Ic-BL, and lGRBs

“…In comparison, the peak luminosity of SNe Ic-BL is relatively lower, which reduces the energy requirement and, in principle, makes the radioactive power model available. Nevertheless, by considering of the continuous transition between different phenomena, it could still be nature to suggest that the emission of a fraction of SNe Ic-BL including GRB-SNe is also partly powered by the magnetar engine, although the majority of the spin-down energy of the magnetar has been converted to the kinetic energy of the SN ejecta (e.g., Lin et al 2021;Zhang et al 2022).…”