AAS Meeting #193 - Austin, Texas, January 1999
Session 47. Supernovae
Display, Thursday, January 7, 1999, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall 1

## [47.04] An Analysis of the Peculiar Type IIn Supernova 1995N

M.D. Baird (Grove City College), P. M. Garnavich, E.M. Schlegel, P. M. Challis, R. P. Kirshner (SAO)

SN 1995N is a peculiar type IIn supernova. Spectroscopic and photometric data for this analysis were gathered between May 10, 1995 (two days after discovery) and July 18, 1998. A total of twenty two photometric images and eight spectra were obtained at the FLWO and MMTO. The photometric data show a broad maximum at R=17.0 occurred in late October, 1995, followed by a very slow decline at a rate of 2.39 {\rm millimag-day}-1 for R and 1.37 {\rm millimag-day}-1 for V. The R decay rate corresponds to a half life of 315 days, which is much longer than that of 56Co. The spectra show broad hydrogen (1500 km/s FWHM) and oxygen (10000 km/s FWZI) emission features along with many unresolved emission lines. Some of the more interesting narrow lines identified correspond to high ionization states for iron such as Fe~VII and Fe~X which indicate temperatures as high as 106 degrees K. These high ionization states, the X-ray detection by Lewin et al. (1996, IAUC 6445) and the slow photometric decay suggest that SN~1995N is powered by a shock propagating through a dense circumstellar environment. From the earliest observations the energy output appears dominated by the interaction and not by radioactivity, implying that the progenitor exploded well before the discovery of SN~1995N. The situation may be similar to SN~1987A, where the rise in emission from a circumstellar interaction is only now beginning and is expected to peak some 15 years after the supernova explosion.