| Description |
We propose to carry out a Herschel/PACS far-infrared (70 and 100 um) survey for thermal emission from cold (T < 150 K) dust in ^en observable core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) known to have occurred within 4 Mpc over the past 20 years. The source of the large amounts of dust observed in high redshift galaxies has remained uncertain for nearly 40 years. Despite the success of theoretical models in condensing dust within supernova ejecta, only a handful of supernovae show direct observational evidence for dust condensation, and these examples all yield 2-3 orders of magnitude less dust than predicted by the models. The recent discovery of a large (1 M_sun) reservoir of newly formed, cold (20 K) dust in SN 1987A has revolutionized our outlook by serving as a reminder that a significant portion of newly formed dust likely exists at colder temperatures. Aside from SN 1987A, however, cold dust has only been observed in nearby supernova remnants (SNRs) due to the limited sensitivity and resolution of longer wavelength instruments, such as Spitzer/MIPS. We show in this proposal that, assuming a dust mass similar to that observed in SN 1987A, Herschel/PACS will be sensitive to cold dust down to 40 K and will provide meaningful upper limits in cases of non-detections. Given this is Herschel.s last round of proposals, this is the only and best opportunity to perform the first search for cold dust in a sample of extragalactic SNe. In only 14.8 hours, we can obtain two color photometry to constrain the dust temperatures and masses in the ^en CCSNe. |
