Interacting Supernovae: a Radio and X-ray Strategy to Constrain the Structure of the Circumstellar Medium

Abstract

The interaction of supernova (SN) ejecta with the dense circumstellar medium (CSM) converts shock kinetic energy into radiation across multiple wavebands. We investigate the dependence of the X-ray and radio emission on the CSM geometry, considering spherical, hourglass, and disk shapes for the CSM. We find that the spectral and light-curve properties, both in X-ray and radio, significantly differ for spherical and non-spherical CSM structures. For a non-spherical CSM, the radio light curve flattens out near the peak frequency, due to efficient free-free absorption by the unshocked CSM. Moreover, the early rise of the radio light curve is shallower when the CSM density along the observer line of sight is larger than that in other directions. If the CSM density is lower along the observer line of sight, the radio light curve flattens near its peak, and the reverse-shock component is negligible in X-rays. Building on these features, we provide a method to constrain the CSM structure based on the rising part the radio light curve in the proximity of its peak; we show that the decay part of the radio light curve, after its peak, carries insight on whether the CSM density profile is wind-like or not. We further adopt the X-ray signal to corroborate the information extracted from radio. We test our strategy on SN 1993j and SN 2023ixf. For both SNe, we find that an asymmetric CSM is in excellent agreement with radio and X-ray observations and provides a viable alternative to non-wind scenarios suggested in the literature. Our findings highlight the crucial insight provided by radio and X-ray signals into the mass-loss history of the SN progenitor.