Off-campus WSU users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your WSU access ID and password, then click the "Off-campus Download" button below.
Non-WSU users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this thesis through interlibrary loan.
Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2017
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S.
Department
Physics and Astronomy
First Advisor
David Cinabro
Abstract
We took the exact observing conditions for 40 spectroscopically confirmed core collapse supernova (CCSN) from the SDSS – II survey, and simulated each of them with 43 different models and 11 extinction parameter values. We then calculated reduced chi square (Rχ2) between the observed and simulated light curves (LCs), for all models in the template. The simulation with the minimum Rχ2 value (Rχ2 min) is considered the best match for the observed CCSN.
We find several CCSN in the SDSS survey that were not well matched to simulation. This was apparent by evaluating the LC plots visually, and from the numerical tools we developed to help guide our decision for determining goodness of fit.
For a total of 40 CCSN, we had 21 well matched CCSN, 12 fuzzy CCSN, and 7 not well matched CCSN. 28 of the 40 CCSN are observed well enough to reliably match with models. Of these 28, 21 are well matched and 7 are not. That is, 25% of the well observed CCSN are not well matched by existing SNANA CCSN template models. This is the primary conclusion of the thesis. Among the well matched CCSN, Model 206 occurred the most often as the Rχ2 min model, occurring 23.8% of the time. The most common extinction value was Av = 0.0, occurring 66.67% of the time. The mean extinction parameter value was |Av| = 0.21 +/- 0.08 for the well matched CCSN.
In this paper, we outline the observed and simulated data sets, as well as the final techniques used to determine goodness of fit. We review LCs from each group, comment on model solutions for the well matched CCSN, and explore in detail several CCSN which could not be well modeled.
Recommended Citation
Dietrich, Phil, "Comparing Core Collapse Supernovae Models With Observations" (2017). Wayne State University Theses. 614.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_theses/614