The New Status Qvo? SN 2021qvo Is Another 2003fg-like Type Ia Supernova with a Rising Light-curve Bump

Paniagua, I. A. Abreu and Hoogendam, W. B. and Jones, D. O. and Dimitriadis, G. and Foley, R. J. and Gall, C. and O’Brien, J. and Taggart, K. and Angus, C. R. and Ashall, C. and Auchettl, K. and Coulter, D. A. and Davis, K. W. and de Boer, T. and Do, A. and Gao, H. and Izzo, L. and Lin, C.-C. and Lowe, T. B. and Lai, Z. and Kaur, R. and Kong, M. Y. and Rest, A. and Siebert, M. R. and Yadavalli, S. K. and Zenati, Y. and Wang, Q. (2026) The New Status Qvo? SN 2021qvo Is Another 2003fg-like Type Ia Supernova with a Rising Light-curve Bump. The Astrophysical Journal, 997 (2): 261. ISSN 0004-637X

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Abstract

In recent years, multiple Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have been observed with “bumps” in their rising light curves shortly after the explosion. Here, we present SN 2021qvo: an SN Ia that exhibits a clear early bump in photometry obtained by the Young Supernova Experiment. Photometric and spectroscopic observations of SN 2021qvo show that it has a broader light curve, higher peak luminosity, shallower Si ii λ5972 pseudoequivalent width, and lower ejecta velocities than normal SNe Ia, which are all consistent with the characteristics of the 2003fg-like (often called “super-Chandrasekhar”) SN subtype. Including SN 2021qvo, just four known 2003fg-like SNe Ia have sufficient prepeak data to reveal a rising light-curve bump, and all four have bump detections. A host-galaxy analysis reveals that SN 2021qvo exploded in a low-mass galaxy log(M*/M⊙)=7.83−0.24+0.17 , also consistent with other members of this class. The current leading early bump 2003fg-like SN Ia progenitor model involves an interaction between the circumstellar material (CSM) and the SN ejecta. We test the validity of this theory by modeling the early bump and subsequent light-curve evolution of SN 2021qvo with the Modular Open Source Fitter for Transients. We find that the bump can be modeled with a best-fit CSM mass in the range MCSM = 3.31−8.51 × 10−3M⊙. SN 2021qvo adds to the small but growing number of 2003fg-like SNe Ia with rising light-curve bumps; as the number of these SNe Ia with CSM estimates continues to grow, population-level inferences about the CSM distribution will be able to constrain the progenitor scenario for these SNe Ia.