Understand
Some fraction of the material ejected in a core collapse supernova explosion may remain bound to the compact remnant, and eventually turn around and fall back.
- We show that the late time (> days) power associated with the accretion of this "fallback" material may significantly affect the optical light curve, in some cases producing super-luminous or otherwise peculiar supernovae.
- We use spherically symmetric hydrodynamical models to estimate the accretion rate at late times for a range of progenitor masses and radii and explosion energies.
- The accretion rate onto the proto-neutron star or black hole decreases as Mdot ~ t^-5/3 at late times, but its normalization can be significantly enhanced at low explosion energies, in very massive stars, or if a strong reverse shock wave forms at the helium/hydrogen interface in the progenitor.