The Late‐Time Radio Emission from SN 1993J at Meter Wavelengths

Abstract

We present the investigations of SN 1993J using low frequency observations with the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope. We analyze the light curves of SN 1993J at 1420, 610, 325 and 243 MHz during $7.5-10$ years since explosion.The supernova has become optically thin early on in the 1420 MHz and 610 MHz bands while it has only recently entered the optically thin phase in the 325 MHz band. The radio light curve in the 235 MHz band is more or less flat. This indicates that the supernova is undergoing a transition from an optically thick to optically thin limit in this frequency band. In addition, we analyze the SN radio spectra at five epochs on day 3000, 3200, 3266, 3460 and 3730 since explosion. Day 3200 spectrum shows a synchrotron cooling break. SN 1993J is the only young supernova for which the magnetic field and the size of the radio emitting region are determined through unrelated methods. Thus the mechanism that controls the evolution of the radio spectra can be identified. We suggest that at all epochs, the synchrotron self absorption mechanism is primarily responsible for the turn-over in the spectra. Light curve models based on free free absorption in homogeneous or inhomogeneous media at high frequencies overpredict the flux densities at low frequencies. The discrepancy is increasingly larger at lower and lower frequencies. We suggest that an extra opacity, sensitively dependent on frequency, is likely to account for the difference at lower frequencies. The evolution of the magnetic field (determined from synchrotron self absorption turn-over) is roughly consistent with $B \propto t^{-1}$. Radio spectral index in the optically thin part evolves from $\alpha \sim 0.8-1.0$ at few tens of days to $\sim 0.6$ in about 10 years.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures in LaTex; scheduled for ApJ 10 September 2004, v612 issue; send comments to: poonam@tifr.res.i