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# Role of c-axis pairs in V2O3 from the band-structure point of view.

## Abstract

The common interpretation of the LDA band structure of V2O3 is that the apparent splitting of the $`a_{1g}`$ band into a low intensity structure deep below the Fermi energy and a high intensity feature above it, is due to the bonding-antibonding coupling of the vertical V-V pair. Using tight-binding fitting to –as well as first-principles NMTO downfolding of– the spin-up LDA+U $`a_{1g}`$ band, we show that there are other hopping integrals which are equally important for the band shape as the integral for hopping between the partners of the pair.

A few years ago, Park et al. reexamined the socalled spin 1/2 model for V2O3 Park00 . Based on polarization dependent x-ray absorption measurements they showed that, for all phases, the vanadium $`3+`$ ion $`(d^2)`$ is in the spin 1 state. They also demonstrated that this state is a mixture of $`e_g^\pi e_g^\pi `$ and $`e_g^\pi a_{1g}`$ configurations, with the former having the larger weight, especially at low temperatures. Recall, that the $`t_{2g}`$ orbitals, which are $`pd\pi `$ anti-bonding with the O $`p`$ orbitals on the surrounding octahedron, lie below the $`pd\sigma `$ anti-bonding $`e_g`$ orbitals and are split by a trigonal distortion into low-lying, doubly degenerate $`e_g^\pi `$ orbitals and a higher-lying $`a_{1g}`$ orbital. The picture presented by Park et al. is hardly consistent with the classical vertical-pair assumption that the bonding-antibonding splitting of the $`a_{1g}`$ orbitals of the V-V pair places the energy of the bonding orbital well *below* that of the $`e_g^\pi `$ orbitals Mott70 ; McWhan73 . This is the assumption which 25 years ago led Castellani et al. to suggest the spin 1/2 model where for the V-V pair two electrons fill the bonding $`a_{1g}`$ orbital and the two remaining electrons 1/4-fill the four $`e_g^\pi `$ orbitals Castellani78 . It is now generally recognized that the spin 1/2 model is incorrect. Nevertheless, the vertical pair remains a popular starting point for current attempts to calculate the electronic structure of V2O3 Mila00 ; Shina01 ; Joshi01 . A comprehensive review of the latest experimental and theoretical results in this field can be found in a recent paper by Di Matteo, Perkins and Natoli Matteo02 .

In the present paper we study the dispersion of the $`a_{1g}`$ band obtained from a modern LDA+U calculation by performing a tight-binding analysis. Our motivation for doing this is to obtain information regarding the smallest cluster that one can use in the model calculations while still preserving the most important aspects of the band structure. In spite of the fact that some literature exists providing the qualitative hint concerning this, we considered it to be rather important to check this with more recent methodology (e.g. the downfolding technique) providing the quantitative estimates. Note that, although the spatial orientation of an $`a_{1g}`$ orbital is actually in favour of a molecular-like picture, our analysis shows that there are other hopping integrals which are equally important for description of the main features of the band structure as the hopping integral between the partners of the c axis pair (t1). Though these inter-pair hopping integrals are smaller than t1, the contribution is proportional to the number of neighbours and that makes them rather significant.

Since we are interested in understanding the relative importance of the hopping between pairs and non-pairs, we consider the band structure of ferromagnetic V2O3 in the high-temperature corundum structure. Although this phase does not exist in nature, it can provide a good estimate of an upper bound for the hopping integrals in this compound for the following reasons: First of all, comparing with antiferromagnetic phases, the ferromagnetic one has the largest band-width Ezhov99 . Secondly, the distance between the partners of a vertical pair is shorter in the corundum structure than in the low-temperature monoclinic phase struc . Therefore the hopping integral between partners of the pair in this structure should be maximal.

In Fig.1 we show the LDA and LDA+U spin-up band structure of V2O3 in the energy range of the 12 $`t_{2g}`$ bands (4 V atoms per cell). Comparing these two pictures one can see that the LDA+U band structure calculated for U=3eV and J=0.8eV is essentially a rigid shift of the $`e_g^\pi `$ band down in energy and $`a_{1g}`$ up so that the former is almost completely below the Fermi energy and the later is above it. However, we note that as a result the mixing between $`e_g^\pi `$ and $`a_{1g}`$ bands is suppressed. Nevertheless, it is clear from Fig.1 that this mixing does not come from the hybridization between different orbitals of the atoms in the c-axis pair. This warns us already about the importance of the neighbours other than the partner in the pair.

The LDA+U band structure, which yields a spin 1 $`e_g^\pi e_g^\pi `$ state, has the advantage that, as already mentioned, the empty $`a_{1g}`$ band is practically separated from the full $`e_g^\pi `$ band. Of course, this depends on the values of the parameters U and J used in the calculations. According to Solovyev et al. the calculated value of the screened parameter U and Hund’s rule exchange J for V 3+ ion in LaVO3 are 3eV and 0.93eV, respectively Solovyev96 . On the other hand, an empirical estimate by Marel and Sawatzky, based on gas-phase multiplet splittings of the 3$`d`$ series, shows that in the case of V 3$`d`$ J is about 0.74eVMarel88 . In the present work we use J=0.8eV as estimated by Tanabe and Sugano for the free V 3+ ion Tanabe54 ; Sugano .

Before we discuss our results we note that, the width of the $`a_{1g}`$ band reaches its maximum at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, where it is about 2eV. One might believe that this width is mainly caused by the bonding-antibonding interaction between the vanadium pairs along the c-axis, and that the interaction between pairs is weak. In the simplest such picture only two hopping parameters would be important: A large intra-pair hopping parameter, which should give the most of the bandwidth, and a smaller inter-pair hopping. This would result in a situation where the splitting of the $`a_{1g}`$ band at the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point is primarily determined by the value of intra-pair hopping integral. However, one notices that the band splits into *four* almost *equally* separated levels.

To shed more light on this issue, we carry out a tight-binding model calculation where the hopping integrals to the first ($`t_1`$), second ($`t_2`$), third ($`t_3`$) and fourth ($`t_4`$) nearest V neighbors are taken into account (Fig.2). Again, $`t_1`$ is the hopping integral between the atoms of the c-axis pair. In Fig.3 (a) to (d) we demonstrate how each of these parameters contribute in the dispersion of $`a_{1g}`$ band. Namely, switching on merely the hopping parameter $`t_1`$ splits the atomic $`a_{1g}`$ level into two doubly degenerate flat bands with energy difference $`2t_1`$. There is no dispersion because the atoms in-between the pairs in the structure are missing. In fact, only because these atoms are missing, does one see pairs at all. Now the main dispersion is caused by the hopping parameter $`t_3`$ which yields a maximal splitting of $`6t_3`$ at the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point (the number of neighbors which an electron can hop to with $`t_3`$ is equal to 3). The hopping parameter $`t_4`$ lifts the degeneracy of each of these doubly degenerate bands. Inclusion of $`t_2`$ makes the band asymmetric with respect to the position of the initial $`a_{1g}`$ level. The final result in Fig.3(d) looks very much like the LDA+U $`a_{1g}`$ band. The parameters used are: $`t_1`$=–0.25eV, $`t_2`$=–0.03eV, $`t_3`$=–0.15eV, $`t_4`$=–0.06eV. Although $`t_1`$ is indeed larger than other hopping integrals, its influence on the bandwidth is not that large, because there is only one nearest neighbour, as compared to 3 for $`t_2`$, 3 for $`t_3`$ and 6 for $`t_4`$.

It is important to note that these values for the hopping parameters are not unique. For example, $`t_1`$=–0.5eV, $`t_2`$=–0.03eV, $`t_3`$=–0.1eV and $`t_4`$=–0.04eV would also give a small splitting at the Z-point, and large one at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ or L, as is shown in Fig.4. This has to do with the symmetry of these points. At the Z-point, for instance, the splitting between the upper and lower components of the $`a_{1g}`$ band is $`2|3t_3t_1|,`$ for $`t_2`$=0. Hence, for any given value of $`t_3`$ there are always two values of $`t_13t_3\pm \delta _Z/2`$ which give exactly the same splitting. Note that $`t_4`$ does not influence the energies at Z. At the L-point, on the other hand, the splitting is determined primarily by the sum of $`t_1`$ and $`t_3`$. Therefore, *no* set of parameters with $`t_1`$ greater than 0.5eV can reproduce the LDA+U band structure at this point (unless $`t_3`$ and $`t_1`$ have the opposite signs, which is ”unphysical”). Comparing figures 1 and 4, one can easily see that the two sets of parameters, which give the same splitting at Z, will give different levels at F, and that only the set with $`t_1=`$–0.25 eV reproduces the accidental degeneray of the two middle levels in the LDA+U. However, to reproduce the LDA+U band in such detail may not be meaningful as long as all hopping integrals beyond $`t_4`$ are neglected.

Although our tight-binding study has clearly demonstrated the role of the various hopping integrals for the dispersion of the $`a_{1g}`$ band, and although we can find parameters which fit the LDA+U $`a_{1g}`$ band, it is difficult to select one set of hopping integrals because, to the accuracy expected for our model, different sets can do this. The most straightforward way to resolve this problem is to use the downfolding procedure of Andersen et. al. nmto . This procedure relies on keeping in the first-principles NMTO band-structure calculation only the relevant degrees of freedom, in this case the $`a_{1g}`$ Wannier-like orbitals whose LDA+U spin-up bands lie in the energy range from the Fermi level to nearly 2 eV above, and integrating out the other degrees of freedom. This naturally takes into account re-normalization effects due to the integrated-out orbitals. Fourier transform of this few-orbital downfolded and symmetrically orthonormalized NMTO Hamiltonian provides the hopping matrix elements of the corresponding tight-binding Hamiltonian. This method provides a way of generating Wannier-like functions and their single-particle Hamiltonian without any fitting procedure. The detailed discussion of such calculations for V2O3, as well as comparisons with Hamiltonians proposed previously, will be presented elsewhere Tanusri . Here we only mention a technical point specific to the present application: Since the downfolding procedure takes place at a more basic level than where U is ”added” to the LDA, we need to construct the *potential* which yields the spin-up LDA+U band structure. That potential we obtained from the LDA potential by shifting its logarithmic-derivative functions, $`\phi _{Rlm}^{}(\epsilon ,s)/\phi _{Rlm}(\epsilon ,s),`$ in energy so as to reproduce the spin-up LDA+U band structure.

From this NMTO downfolding calculation we obtained the following hopping integrals: $`t_1`$=–0.30eV, $`t_2`$=–0.02eV, $`t_3`$=–0.11eV and $`t_4`$=–0.05eV, which are close, although not identical to those used in Fig.3(d). As Fig.5(a) shows, the band structure obtained from these hopping integrals differs a bit from that in Fig.3(d), and from the upper four LDA+U bands in Fig.1. The reason is simply that the downfolded band structure shown in Fig.5(b), obtained by downfolding to the the four $`a_{1g}`$ bands, cannot be reproduced completely with merely $`t_1,t_2,t_3,`$ and $`t_4`$. Its Hamiltonian has also non-zero higher Fourier components, which is hardly surprising. The downfolding calculation thus confirms the gross values of the hopping integrals found by tight-binding fitting to the first 4 shells, but also points to the need for including longer ranged hoppings to reproduce the details.

One should keep in mind that the hopping integrals discussed above are for vanadium-centered Wannier-like orbitals and thus different from the Slater- Koster hopping integrals for atomic oxygen and vanadium orbitals obtained by Mattheiss Mattheiss94 . Following Harrison one can show that the hopping integral between $`a_{1g}`$ atomic orbitals on the vanadium pair is about 0.8eV Harrison , whereas the one in which the oxygen degrees of freedom are integrated out is much less than that. This reduction is due to the anti-bonding character of the $`pd\pi `$ interaction.

We have thus demonstrated that, although the integral for hopping between the vertical pair is the largest hopping integral, it is not the single most important one for the $`a_{1g}`$ bandwidth. This is so because the actual hopping integrals are not only determined by the direct V-V hoping but also evolve via intermediate O 2p orbitals. The simple picture where only the hopping parameter within the c-axis pair is important is not sufficient to describe the $`a_{1g}`$ band in V2O3. Our calculations show that the hopping integrals between second, third, and fourth nearest vanadium neighbors are equally important.

The authors are grateful to O.K. Andersen, V.I. Anisimov and G.A. Sawatzky for very fruitful and inspiring discussions. I.S.E. is grateful for financial support from the Spinoza prize program of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and from the Canadian Institute for Advanced research. T.S.D. would like to thank Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara for its hospitality during which a part of the work has been carried out. M.A.K. is grateful for financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research RFFI-01-02-17063.


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# Limits on charge non-conservation from possible seasonal variations of the solar neutrino experiments

## Abstract

Variable speed of light (VSL) theories generically lead to large violations of charge conservation that can be written in terms of a dimensionless parameter $`\lambda `$. It is shown that the motion of the Earth with respect to the Sun could lead to a seasonal variation for the SAGE and GALLEX-GNO experiments and analyzing the reported counting rates for these experiments, a very stringent bound $`\lambda 2\times 10^{19}`$ is obtained, some $`10^9`$ times smaller than previous ones. Furthermore, a bound on the lifetime of the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ charge-nonconserving decay in VSL theories is found as: $`\tau _{\mathrm{CNC}}1.4\times 10^{27}\mathrm{years}`$. Similarly a new upper limit for the ratio of the charge-nonconserving to the normal weak decay of the neutron in VSL theories is obtained: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(np+\nu _e+\overline{\nu }_e)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(np+e+\overline{\nu }_e)2\times 10^{27}`$.

11.30.-j,04.50.+h,26.65.+t

Charge conservation; VSL Theories; solar neutrino experiments.

Recently, a growing interest in the time variation of fundamental constants has arisen, driven by the tantalizing observation that $`\alpha =e^2/\mathrm{}c`$ may have been slightly smaller when the Universe was younger $`z>1,t_0t>8\times 10^9\mathrm{yr}`$ . This may be attributed either to a time variation of the electron charge $`e`$ or of the speed of light $`c`$ .

The second possibility has received much attention, since a varying speed of light may solve the homogeneity, horizon and flatness problems in cosmology . Several variations of these theories have been proposed with varying degree of sophistication .

It was observed in Ref.  that a generic variable speed of light (VSL) theory leads necessarily to a large violation of charge conservation. This is because Maxwell’s equations are modified in the form:

$$\frac{1}{c}_\mu \left(cF^{\mu \nu }\right)=4\pi j^\nu ,$$
(1)
from which the following relation of charge nonconservation to the variation of $`c`$ can be derived

$$\frac{\dot{Q}}{Q}=\frac{\dot{c}}{c},$$
(2)
This equation provides very stringent tests of the variation of $`c`$, since there have been many experiments to test the conservation of charge .

If it is assumed that the electron charge $`e`$ is constant, charge non-conservation can only be the result of processes that change charge discontinuously. Models for these kind of processes have been proposed in Refs. . An analysis based on this models yield an upper limit on $`\dot{c}/c`$ that are much more smaller than those obtained by direct measurements : $`|\dot{c}/c|<10^{31}yr^1`$.

A consistent VSL leads to a dynamically prediction of the value of $`c`$ via a wave-like equation for $`\psi =\mathrm{ln}(c/c_0)`$, whose source term is proportional to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. Hence, in the neighborhood of a quasistatic system, such as a star, a generic expression for the variation of $`c`$ takes the form

$$c(t)=c_c(t)\left(1\lambda \frac{GM}{c_0^2r}\right).$$
(3)
Here $`\lambda `$ is a constant that depends on the specific VSL theory. In the limit $`r\mathrm{}`$ the expression for $`c`$ reduces to the cosmological one $`(cc_c(t))`$. In this work we are interested in finding a bound to the constant $`\lambda `$ that parametrizes the charge nonconservation.

In the static regime, the $`\mathbf{}c`$ contributions are second order and can be neglected. In this case there are two contributions to the charge non-conservation: one accounts for time-variation over cosmological time scales and the other for the motion of the earth with respect to massive bodies

$$\frac{\dot{c}}{c}=\left(\frac{\dot{c}}{c}\right)_{\mathrm{cosmological}}+\left(\frac{\dot{c}}{c}\right)_{\mathrm{local}}=n\frac{\dot{a}}{a}+\frac{\lambda GM}{c_0^2r^3}𝒓𝒗,$$
(4)
where $`𝒗`$ is the velocity of the Earth with respect to the center of mass of nearby bodies. The last term of equation (4) represents a breakdown of charge conservation, induced by the presence of local matter.

Also, charge nonconservation may be associated to the breakdown of Einstein’s Equivalence principle, as shown in Ref. . In this case, CNC processes would lead to an expression similar to the second term of (4)

$$\frac{\dot{Q}}{Q}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{4}\frac{𝒈_0𝒗}{c_0^2}$$
(5)
where $`𝒈_0`$ is the local gravitational acceleration and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ characterizes anomalous accelerations and anomalous mass tensors :

$`\delta m_P`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }_0{\displaystyle \frac{E_C}{c_0^2}},`$ (6)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }a_C`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta m_P}{m}}g_0.`$ (7)
The SAGE  and GALLEX-GNO  radiochemical solar neutrino experiments are based on the neutrino capture reaction $`\nu _e+{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}e^{}+{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$. This reaction has a low energy threshold: $`E_{th}=0.2332\mathrm{MeV}`$ that makes possible the detection of $`pp`$ solar neutrinos. However it was pointed out in Ref.  that in these experiments the appearance of $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ produced by the $`\nu _e`$ on the target $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}`$ can in principle be the result of charge nonconservation reaction. The reason is that as there is no electron emitted in a charge nonconservation reaction such as $`np+\gamma `$ or $`np+\nu _e+\overline{\nu }_e`$, this leads in principle to the possibility that the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}`$ undergoes a charge-nonconserving decay to the ground and to the first excited state of the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$, that otherwise wold be forbidden by energy conservation. Based on the results form SAGE and GALLEX alone it is not possible to discern whether the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ was produce via a charge-nonconserving processes or by a normal weak decay; hence it is possible to test those theories that predict the violation of the charge conservation.

In Ref.  these results were applied for the case of the Earth motion relative to Virgo supercluster, in this case $`v1000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ and $`GM/c_0^2r2\times 10^7`$. The charge nonconservation effect would contribute to the CNC $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}+\mathrm{neutrals}`$ processes, hence an upper limit on the parameter $`\lambda `$ can be derived:

$$|\lambda |2\times 10^{10}.$$
(8)
The above limit is based on cosmological considerations. Ref.  has stressed the importance of local tests of variable speed of light theories. In this paper, we shall develop such a test, based on changes in the rate of Charge Nonconserving Processes (CNC) induced the motion of the Earth around the Sun, that introduces a periodic variation of $`c`$ with a one year period :

$$\frac{\dot{Q}}{Q}\lambda \frac{GM_{}}{c_0^2a_{}}e_{}\omega _{}\mathrm{sin}\omega _{}(tt_0)$$
(9)
where $`M_{}`$ is the mass of the Sun, $`a_{}`$ and $`e_{}0.0167`$ are the major axis and eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth, and $`\omega _{}=2\pi /T_{}`$ the frequency (mean motion) of the Earth motion around the Sun. Since $`t_0`$, the time of perihelion passage, is around January 10, a periodic signal may be discerned (or bounded) comparing spring and autumn results from experiments testing charge conservation. In the case of the Gallium experiments a seasonal effect is expected; the term $`𝒓\mathbf{}𝒗`$ varies along the year in a sinusoidal way. As previously discussed, a charge nonconservation decay $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}`$ to $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ is energetically allowed. According to Eqs. (2) and (4) a contribution to the charge increase required in this situation can only arise during half of the year, because the term $`𝒓\mathbf{}𝒗`$ changes sign during the other half and the reverse process ($`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ to $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}`$) is energetically forbidden. Hence the average contribution of the charge nonconserving effect to the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ counting for the spring period would be expected to be different as compared to that of autumn period.

Combining the relevant terms of Eqs.(2) and (4) the relative charge variation can be written as

$$\frac{\dot{Q}}{Q}=\frac{\lambda GM}{c_0^2a_{}}\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(10)
Here $`GM/c_0^2a_{}1\times 10^8`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the time average of the $`𝒓𝒗/r^2`$ factor, that for the spring period can be computed as

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{2e_{}h_{}}{\left(1+e_{}\right)^3a_{}^2}\left(1+\frac{e_{}^2}{3}\right),$$
(11)
where $`h=L/m`$ is the angular momentum per unit mass of the Earth and the rest of the notation is the same as in Eq. (9). Hence $`h_{}/a_{}29.79\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$ corresponds to the mean orbital velocity.

The SAGE and GALLEX collaborations have reported results of $`73\pm 18`$ and $`78\pm 12`$ solar neutrino units ($`\mathrm{SNU}`$) respectively, where $`1`$ $`\mathrm{SNU}=10^{36}`$ neutrino captures per target atom per second. Furthermore the SAGE collaboration have reported the neutrino rates for periods of 30 days along the whole year. Unfortunately, the GALLEX-GNO collaboration have not reported monthly or bimonthly averages. The seasonal averages where computed from the data for individual runs in Refs.  and from the monthly data in Refs. . Analyzing these results the asymmetry for the spring period as compared with autumn one yields

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{GALLEX}+\mathrm{GNO}}`$ $`=`$ $`11.3\pm 9.8\mathrm{SNU}`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{SAGE}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.5\pm 10.5\mathrm{SNU}`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{Comb}}`$ $`=`$ $`5.8\pm 7.2\mathrm{SNU}`$ (12)
The maximum possible flux asymmetry $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }`$ when these two periods are compared can be taken as a $`3\sigma `$ limit:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }21.6\mathrm{SNU}.$$
(13)
From this result we conclude that the charge asymmetry $`\dot{Q}/Q`$ can be no larger than $`21.6\times 10^{36}\mathrm{s}^1`$ per target atom; in combination with the previous results it leads to the following bound for the parameter $`\lambda `$:

$$\lambda 2\times 10^{19}.$$
(14)
This bound is about $`10^9`$ times smaller than the previous one, based on cosmological considerations.

A similar bound would be found for the breakdown of Einstein’s Equivalence Principle:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_010^{18}.$$
(15)
This is somewhat smaller than the expected accuracy of STEP .

These results can also be used to derive a bound for the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}+\mathrm{neutrals}`$ lifetime, in the case of processes of the type proposed in Refs . From the limits on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=21.3\mathrm{SNU}`$ asymmetry we conclude that the charge-nonconserving decay rate of $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ fulfills the relation

$$\frac{dN\left({}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}\right)}{dt}=\lambda _{\mathrm{CNC}}N\left({}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}\right)<\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }N\left({}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}\right)$$
(16)
where $`N\left({}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}\right)`$ is the number of $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}`$ atoms in the neutrino detectors and $`\lambda _{\mathrm{CNC}}`$ is the decay rate for the $`{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}`$ charge-nonconserving decay. Hence the bound for the lifetime of this processes yields

$$\tau _{\mathrm{CNC}}\left({}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ga}{}_{}{}^{71}\mathrm{Ge}\right)1.4\times 10^{27}\mathrm{years}.$$
(17)
This result should be compared with the previous upper limit $`\tau _{\mathrm{CNC}}3.5\times 10^{26}\mathrm{years}`$ obtained in Ref. . This bound was obtained by considering the the total counts of $`73\pm 18`$ $`SNU`$ for SAGE and $`78\pm 12`$ $`SNU`$ for GALLEX. In the same way, a bound for the branching ratio of CNC processes to beta decay can be obtained as in Ref.  from the seasonal asymmetry effect produced by the second term of Eq. (4).

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(np+\nu _e+\overline{\nu }_e)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(np+e+\overline{\nu }_e)2\times 10^{27}$$
(18)
We have shown that the absence of seasonal spring-autumn variations in Gallium solar neutrino experiments imposes extremely tight bounds on the parameters of varying speed of light theories, some $`10^9`$ times smaller than those obtained from cosmological considerations. This not only confirms the importance of local tests of VSL theories, as stressed in Ref.  but also imposes very strict constraints on their structure.

H. V. acknowledges the hospitality of IFUNAM. This work was partially supported by CONACyT grants No. G32736-E and U42046.


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# Spectropolarimetry of SN 2001el in NGC 1448: Asphericity of a Normal Type Ia Supernova1footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile (ESO Progr. No. 68.D-0571(A).

## 1 Introduction

The last decade has witnessed an explosive growth of high-quality data and models for supernovae with spectacular results that provided new perspectives for the use of SNe Ia as cosmological yard sticks and for constraining the physics of supernovae. SNe Ia have provided new estimates for the value of the Hubble constant ($`H_0`$) with 10 % uncertainty based on a purely empirical procedure (Hamuy et al., 1996; Riess, Press, & Kirshner, 1996), and on a comparison of detailed theoretical models with observations (Höflich & Khokhlov, 1996; Nugent et al., 1997). More recently, the routine successful detection of supernovae at large redshifts, z (Perlmutter et al., 1997; Riess et al., 1998), provided results that are consistent with a low matter density in the Universe and, most intriguing of all, yielded hints for a positive cosmological constant, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`0.7`$, and prompted the quest for the nature of the “dark energy” or cosmological equation of state (Perlmutter, Turner, & White, 1999). To pursue these issues with SNe Ia, the required photometric accuracy has to be better than 2 to 5 % (Albrecht & Weller 2000). This raises systematic effects as the main source of concern (Höflich et al., 1998). In this context, it is important to understand observationally whether or not SN Ia are spherically symmetric since any deviations from sphericity could potentially affect the accuracy of distance estimates.

Aside from the new focus on SN Ia as cosmological tools, there are long-standing problems associated with determining the progenitor evolution and the physical processes involved in the explosion by thermonuclear combustion. It is nearly universally assumed that SN Ia result from some form of binary evolution, but no direct observational evidence for this conjecture has ever been presented. There is also general agreement that SNe Ia result from some process involving the combustion of a degenerate white dwarf (WD) (Hoyle & Fowler, 1960). Within this general picture, three classes of models have been considered: (1) an explosion of a carbon/oxygen (CO) WD, with mass close to the Chandrasekhar limit, that accretes mass through Roche-lobe overflow from an evolved companion star (Whelan & Iben, 1973); (2) an explosion of a rotating configuration formed from the merging of two low-mass WDs, caused by the loss of angular momentum through gravitational radiation (Webbink, 1984; Iben & Tutukov, 1984; Paczyński, 1985); and (3) explosion of a low mass CO-WD triggered by the detonation of a helium layer (Weaver, Axelrod, & Woosley, 1980; Wallace & Woosley, 1981; Nomoto, 1982; Woosley & Weaver, 1986). Only the first two models appear to be viable for observed SN Ia (Höflich & Khokhlov, 1996; Nugent et al., 1997). Although not favored for most SN Ia, the merging of two WDs may contribute to the SNe Ia population particularly, perhaps, to subluminous events (Howell et al., 2001). All three scenarios might leave some trace in polarization data.

There are at least three ways in which the fact that SN Ia evolve and explode in binary systems could impart a dominant axis to the explosion that could be reflected in the polarization. Perhaps the most general is that the WD could be rotating. Rotation could affect the shape of the WD, or it could affect the propagation of the thermonuclear burning (see below) and hence the distribution of either the elements produced or the density or both (Howell et al., 2001). Another generic asymmetric feature is an accretion disk. Accretion disks resulting from mass transfer are not expected to be very massive and hence it is difficult to see how the swept up disk matter could directly affect the asymmetry. The exception might be if the disk comes from the disruption of a binary WD companion, in which case the remnant disk at the time of the explosion could be thick and dense. A third asymmetry generic to binary evolution models for SN Ia is a binary companion. In two of the scenarios, the $`M_{Ch}`$ models and the helium detonators, the binary companion should still exist. The collision of the ejecta with this companion must induce some level of asymmetry in the ejecta (Livne et al., 1992; Marietta et al., 2000).

Other asymmetries, especially departures from a dominant axis of symmetry could be intrinsic to the explosion process. The departures from the dominant axis could come from lumps of 56Ni that produce irregularities in the excitation. These, in turn, would be clues to the nature of the thermonuclear burning that drives the explosion. Within the class of $`M_{Ch}`$ models, it is believed that the explosion is triggered by compressional heating near the WD center, and that the burning front starts as a subsonic deflagration. The time evolution of the burning front is still an open question. The issue is whether the deflagration front burns through the entire WD (Nomoto, Thielemann, & Yokoi, 1984) or makes a transition into a supersonic detonation mode, as suggested in the delayed detonation (DD) model (Khokhlov, 1991; Yamaoka et al., 1992). DD models have been found to reproduce the optical and infrared light curves and spectra of “typical” SNe Ia reasonably well (Höflich, 1995b; Höflich & Khokhlov, 1996; Nugent et al., 1997; Wheeler et al., 1998; Lentz et al., 2001). The propagation of a detonation front is well understood (Gamezo, Wheeler, Khokhlov, & Oran, 1999; Sharpe, 2001), but the description of the deflagration front and the deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) pose problems.

Significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the physics of thermonuclear flames. The front has been found to be Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) unstable, increasing the effective speed of the burning front (Nomoto et al. 1976) and also, perhaps, imposing density irregularities (plumes) on the structure that could be reflected in the polarimetry. Starting from static WDs, hydrodynamic calculations of the deflagration fronts have been performed in 2-D (Reinecke, Hillebrandt, & Niemeyer, 1999) and 3-D (Livne, 1993; Khokhlov, 1995, 2002). RT instabilities govern the morphology of the burning front and the effective burning speed is very sensitive to the energy release by the fuel, and therefore to the local C/O ratio (Khokhlov, 2002). Therefore, the actual flame propagation will depend on the detailed chemical structure of the progenitor. Three-dimensional models (Khokhlov, 2002) suggest that plumes of burned matter are frozen out in the expansion. These plumes, rich in 56Ni, could be the source of dispersion around any dominant polarization axis. On the other hand, optical and IR data on the sub-luminous, but significantly polarized SN 1999by (Howell et al., 2001), seem to be at odds with these models of the deflagration phase that predict significant mixing of the inner layers of the WD prior to detonation. Whether this conflict exists for normally bright SN Ia remains to be seen. The transition to detonation is thought to occur earlier in normally-bright events, giving less time for the RT structure to develop. This might allow clumps of 56Ni to develop that could drive the dispersion in polarization vectors without causing intolerably large distortions of the flux spectrum.

Pre-conditioning of the WD may affect the nature of both normal and subluminous SNe Ia. Such pre-conditioning may involve the main sequence mass and metallicity of the progenitor WD (Domínguez et al., 2001; Höflich et al., 1998; Iwamoto et al., 1999), the accretion history (Langer et al., 2000), large-scale velocity fields such as turbulence prior to the runaway (Höflich & Stein, 2002), or rotation (Howell et al., 2001).

A picture of the geometrical structure of different chemical constituents of different varieties of SN Ia can thus be crucial for constraining the physical models of the progenitor evolution and explosion. During the first few weeks after the explosion, the photosphere recedes rapidly from the outermost stellar surface to deep inside the metal-rich central regions where the chemical composition is heavily affected by the explosion. Polarization is a powerful tool to probe the structure of the rapidly expanding matter and to provide detailed information about the geometrical structure of the ejecta that is important in understanding supernova explosions and their subsequent evolution to supernova remnants. Polarimetry can also be used to probe the pre-explosion environment and the properties of the ISM along the line of sight.

Wang et al. (1996), and Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997) reported polarimetry data obtained at McDonald Observatory. They studied supernova polarimetry published before 1996 and found that Type Ia supernovae are normally not polarized and on average show much lower polarization than core-collapse supernovae (Type II, Ib/c). The degree of polarization of most SN Ia observed in Wang et al. (1996) and Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997) is unlikely to be higher than 0.2-0.3% at the observed epochs. The data also indicate a higher degree of polarization for the bare-core or low mass events such as Type IIb, and Ib/c supernovae, than for more massive ejecta (Wang et al., 2001a). The degree of polarization is a function of time after explosion. For core-collapse events, the degree of polarization is higher past optical maximum than before optical maximum (Wang et al., 2001a; Leonard et al., 2000; Leonard & Filippenko, 2001; Leonard et al., 2001). These conclusions were based upon only a few events, and not all types of supernovae were covered.

Spectropolarimetric observations of SN Ia and interpretation of the data are both very difficult as emphasized in Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997). Because of the large number of overlapping Fe II lines in an SN Ia atmosphere, polarization features of SN Ia are usually harder to detect and interpret than those of SN II. For SN II, lines of H$`\alpha `$ and Na I/He I 5876 Å normally stand out and a geometrical picture can be built based on these lines. Further analysis of other chemical components can be constructed following the structure deduced from the stronger lines. Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997) argue that despite the rather noisy appearance of the spectropolarimetry of SN 1996X, polarization of degree around 0.25% may have been detected by comparing the observed data with model calculations of SN Ia polarization spectra. The only SN Ia published so far that showed a clear polarization signal of about 0.7% is the sub-luminous event SN 1999by, which at optical maximum had a chemical structure very different than that of normal SN Ia Howell et al. (2001). It thus remains an extremely interesting question to investigate the polarization of spectroscopically normal SNe Ia, and other subclasses of SNe Ia.

In this paper, we present in §2 observations and data reduction of SN 2001el. We discuss the spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric evolution in §3 and §4, respectively. The structure of the SN 2001el ejecta is studied in §5. In §6, we give a discussion and conclusions with emphasis on implications for progenitor models of SN Ia and the effect of asymmetry on SN Ia luminosity. Detailed discussions of the structure of the the ejecta with the focus on the Ca II features are given in a seperate paper by Kasen et al. (2003).

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction of SN 2001el in NGC 1448

The bright SN Ia event SN 2001el provided a rare chance to study the structure of a thermonuclear explosion. An image taken by the VLT with FORS1 in imaging mode is shown in Figure 1. The SN was discovered visually on Sept 17.064 UT at a magnitude about 14.5 (Monard, 2001). The host, NGC 1448, is a spiral galaxy nearly edge on with major axis at position angle around 45o. Galactic reddening on the line of sight to NGC 1448 is E(B-V) = 0.014 mag (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis, 1998). The supernova is located at R.A. = 3h44m30s.60, Decl. = -44o38’23”.4 (equinox 2000.0), which is 14” west and 20” north of the nucleus of NGC 1448. The line of sight does not intersect the core or disk of NGC 1448 so that extinction within the host galaxy should be small. The SN was not detected down to 14.6 on Aug. 25.96 and was seen rising in brightness the night after discovery (Monard, 2001). The peak magnitude was V = 12.7 mag on about 1 Oct (N. Suntzeff private communication). It was classified as a SN Ia well before maximum based on spectroscopic data taken using the ESO-VLT Kueyen with the UVES, an echelle spectrograph, by Sollerman et al. (2001) who also noticed that the characteristic Si II absorption at 612 nm appeared to be flat-bottomed. The ESO UVES data show also interstellar absorption lines of Ca II H and K, and lines of Na I D with equivalent width of 0.037 nm and 0.031 nm respectively, at the redshift (1162 kms-1) of NGC 1448. The first set of spectropolarimetry data was obtained on Sept. 26 UT using the ESO-VLT Melipal with FORS1 (Wang et al., 2001b) for which we reported spectral features and the positive detection of polarization at about 0.7% – comparable to what is normally observed for Type II supernovae.

We subsequently decided to obtain spectropolarimetry of SN 2001el in great detail for two purposes. First, we want to obtain data of superb quality so that we can establish firmly the characteristics of a definitely polarized SN Ia. This knowledge can then be used to assess the degree to which we can trust other data sets – both those observed from the VLT and those obtained at smaller telescopes. Secondly, SN 2001el for which the maximum luminosity was brighter than 13 mag provided a rare opportunity to study in great detail the nature of SN Ia. We planned the observations so that the evolution from before optical maximum to close to the nebular phase was well covered. We also tried to guess the location of the photosphere while planning the observations so that important epochs where the photosphere crossed a chemical layer could be probed.

All of these observations were obtained in service mode through our Target of Opportunity program at the VLT Melipal with FORS1. FORS1 employs a TK2048EB4-1 2048$`\times `$2048 backside-illuminated thinned CCD. The cooling of the CCD is performed by a standard ESO bath cryostat. This system uses a FIERA controller for CCD readout. The grism GRIS-300V (ESO number 10) was used for all observations. The order separation filter GG 435+31 (4) was used in some observations to study the Ca II IR triplet, but was also taken out to observe spectral features in the blue end. The supernova was always observed in four subsequent separate exposures with the position angle of the Wollaston prism at 0o.0, 45o.0, 22o.5, and 67o.5. The $`\lambda /2`$ retarder plates are of the “superachromatic” type, and the position angles can be set with an accuracy of 0.1 degree. The chromatic zero angles were set by the data provided in the VLT FORS1 user manual (Böhnhardt & Szeifert, 2002). The spatial scale is about 0.20′′/pixel. The spectral resolution for these observations is around 12.7 Å as measured from the spectral calibration lamps – with each pixel corresponding to about 2.6 Å in wavelength scale. A slit of 1.0′′ wide is used for all these observations.

A log of observations is presented in Table 1. In addition to the observations listed in Table 1, we have also obtained images for bias correction, wavelength calibration, and flat fielding for each observing run. The wavelength calibration and flat fielding images are all obtained with the waveplate rotated to the same position angles used for the supernova observations, i. e., 0o.0, 45o.0, 22o.5, 67o.5. The flat field images of each run are combined to form the final flat field correction image that is applied to each data set. Standard data reduction procedures including bias correction, flat-fielding, background subtraction, spectrum extraction, wavelength calibration, and flux calibration were performed using the IRAF package (Tody, 1993). The polarized spectra were reduced using our own software. The per-pixel photon statistical errors of the Q and U vectors of the VLT data were typically below 0.1%. Because polarimetry involves the difference of the ordinary and extra-ordinary light, the per-pixel errors are normally exaggerated and are artificial because each resolution element contains more than one pixel. It is always useful to rebin the data into bin sizes comparable to the spectral resolution to reduce the artificial per-pixel errors and error correlations. In this paper, all Stokes parameters were rebinned to a 15Å interval. The binning was done by calculating the average polarization within a bin weighted by the number of detected photons within each pixel (Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich, 1997). The 15 Å binning was chosen so that it is slightly larger than spectral resolution of the data (12.7 Å) to eliminate sampling errors of the resolution element. The rebinning is equivalent to calculating the degree of polarization of all photons integrated in each bin; when the bin size is larger than the resolution element, the errors of the Stokes Parameters in each wavelength bin are uncorrelated. Typical photon statistical errors in the Q and U vector after binning to the 15 Å interval are around 0.02% for all of these observations and are not a major source of error in the discussion of these data. During the commissioning of FORS1 in 1998/1999 the systematic instrumental polarization of FORS1 was found to be less than 0.1% (Szeifert 1999, private communication). Errors during data reduction are expected to be small as well ($`<0.02\%`$) as the data are reduced in double precision.

## 3 Spectroscopic Properties of SN 2001el

Figure 2 shows the spectral evolution of SN 2001el. The date of $`B`$ maximum of SN 2001el was found to be Sept 31 by Krisciunas et al. (2003), from which we found that our spectra were taken at -4, +1, +10, +19, and +41 days from $`B`$ maximum, respectively. SN 2001el would be a spectroscopically normal supernova had the wavelengths beyond 750 nm not been observed in the pre-maximum phase. The match of spectral features to SN 1994D is extremely good except for the vicinity of the Ca II IR triplet. The Ca II IR triplet is clearly detected in all our spectra of SN 2001el with a strength that grows in time at a velocity around -10,000 km s-1, close to the velocities given by other photospheric lines such as Si II 635.5 nm. The feature that distinguishes SN 2001el is a distinctively strong absorption at around 800 nm. As argued below, we interpret this as a kinematically and geometrically separate filament or shell of calcium-rich material.

SN 1994D and other SN Ia have shown weak features corresponding to the Ca II IR triplet at high velocities with a double-humped absorption minimum (Hatano et al., 1999). Models of SN 1994D showed that the Ca II IR triplet can form a feature with a two-component absorption mimimum (Höflich 1995b; Höflich, Wheeler & Thielemann 1998, their Figure 9), but that the double minimum structure is primarily dictated by the density and temperature through the ionization in such a way that the feature should recede in velocity as the ejecta expand. Although the 800 nm feature fades with the approach to maximum light, it always remains distinct from the photospheric Ca II IR triplet feature as the latter gains in strength. The 800 nm feature does not seem to evolve substantially in velocity space. In addition, the post-maximum photospheric component of the Ca II IR triplet in SN 2001el has a sharp blue edge at velocity around -12,500 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (see the last two spectra at +16 and +38 d in Figure 2). This implies that there is a sharp density drop of Ca at that velocity. On the other hand, the pre-maximum line profiles of the 800 nm feature show rather sharp edges that, if identified with Ca II, correspond to a velocity of about 15,000 – 20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ on the red side and about 26,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ on the blue side (see the top spectrum in Figure 2). The polarization data accentuates this delineation in velocity space as shown in the first panels corresponding to the data on 26 Sept in Figure 3. In any case, the red edge of the high velocity feature at the top of Figure 2 does not overlap with the blue edge of the low velocity Ca II feature at the bottom of Figure 2. If both of these absorptions are due to the Ca II IR triplet, this implies that the high-velocity filament or shell also has rather well-defined geometrical boundaries.

The polarization data suggest that the lowest velocity matter in this high-velocity feature might be at about 17,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$if the feature is Ca II. The polarization shows that this feature also has a different geometrical orientation than the geometry that defines the dominant axis of the photosphere. Taken together, the velocity separation, the large amplitude of the polarization, and the different polarization angle all imply that this feature is a kinematically and geometrically separate high-velocity component that is enriched in calcium.

It is difficult to see whether something like this separate high velocity feature exists in other SN Ia. The kinematic boundaries of the high-velocity calcium are impossible to discern in the data of SN 1994D, since the feature is so much weaker. A search of published SN Ia spectra show that most of the SN Ia with pre-maximum spectra covering the 800 nm area reveal weak spectral features similar to that of SN 1994D. As for SN 1994D, however, it is difficult to discern whether this high velocity component is geometrically “detached” from the photospheric structure when the line is weak. In addition, the presence of Fe II absorption at about 800 nm can obscure the nature of this feature. The current SN Ia data base does seem to suggest that the very strong feature, definitely displaced from the photospheric Ca II IR triplet, is rather special to SN 2001el. We address the possible physical origin of this feature in §5.

## 4 Spectropolarimetry Properties of SN 2001el

Wang et al. (2001a) outlined a method to decompose the observed polarimetry into two components. On the Q - U plot, the two components correspond to the polarized vectors projected onto the so-called dominant axis and the axis perpendicular to the dominant axis. The dominant axis can be defined from the aspherical distribution of the data points on the Q - U plane. The dominant axis is derived by a linear fit to the data points weighted by the observational errors in the Q - U plane. The spectropolarimetry projected to the dominant axis represents global geometric deviations from spherical symmetry whereas the vector perpendicular to the dominant axis represents deviations from the dominant axis. The same method will be applied in this study as well.

We show in Figures 3 to 7 the observed data points in the Q - U plane. Each point represent a data pair of the Q - U vector at a different wavelength. The wavelength of the data points in important intervals are encoded in color. The data show remarkable evolution during the five epochs of observation. The polarization also shows spectral features that can be identified with features in the flux spectra. This firmly establishes that SN 2001el is intrinsically polarized, at least at certain epochs after explosion.

SN 2001el exhibits some remarkable features that are unlike those of previously observed SN II and the subluminous SN Ia 1999by (Wang et al., 1996; Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich, 1997; Wang et al., 2001a; Leonard & Filippenko, 2001; Leonard et al., 2001; Howell et al., 2001). On the Q - U plot, SN 1998S and SN 1999by showed well-defined linear features (Wang et al., 2001a; Howell et al., 2001). This is indicative of a relatively well-defined symmetry axes. The SN 2001el data, however, show large scatter around the dominant axis. In particular, a sharp increase of the degree of polarization is seen in the Ca II IR triplet in the Sept. 26 and Oct. 1 data. Other strong polarized spectral features are also observed during Sept. 26 and Oct. 1. The polarized features becomes much weaker in the data taken on Oct. 18 and afterwards.

### 4.1 Interstellar Polarization

To derive the intrinsic polarization due to the supernova atmosphere, we first need to deduce the component due to interstellar dust. A simple approach is to assume that the resonance-scattered photons are unpolarized (Trammell et al., 1993). This method attempts to distinguish continuum and scattered photons and use that separation to derive interstellar extinction (Jeffrey, 1991; Trammell et al., 1993; Höflich et al., 1996; Wang et al., 1996; Tran et al., 1997; Leonard & Filippenko, 2001). This technique implicitly assumes a unique intrinsic polarimetry axis and the derived interstellar polarization should fall on the dominant axis. The interstellar polarization derived from this method, however, is normally inconsistent with the initial assumptions. In the case of SN 1993J, it is also clear from the data in the Q - U plane that there are significant deviations from the dominant axis (Wang et al., 2001a). Another method is outlined in Wang et al. (2001a) that relaxes the constraints on the polarization properties of emission lines and assumes only that at each specific epoch, the polarization produced by the supernova ejecta has a single polarization position angle independent of wavelength. This method would set the interstellar polarization at one of the two ends of the dominant axis. This method again, is perhaps a useful method only for those data with a well-defined dominant axis.

Neither of the above two methods are applicable for the SN Ia data to be discussed in this paper. The time evolution of the polarization data in fact show that the degree of polarization decreases significantly after maximum light. The data taken on 2001 Nov. 9, in particular, show flat Q and U spectra with little evidence of deviations across most of the strong lines. At this phase, the supernova has entered the nebular phase, and there are substantial reasons to believe that the ejecta have become optically thin to electron scattering. Intrinsic polarization due to the supernova ejecta should be small at this phase. Panels (b) and (d) of Figure 7 show that there are perhaps still detectable polarized features at the P-Cygni absorption dip of the Ca II IR triplet, but the degree is significantly smaller than for earlier epochs. In wavelength regions excluding the Ca II IR triplet feature, the fluctuations of the polarization are about 0.1% – consistent with earlier observations on other post-maximum SN Ia. If we assume that at this epoch in the wavelength range 430 – 500 nm the supernova is intrinsically unpolarized, we find the interstellar polarization to be at $`Q=0.01\pm 0.05`$, and $`U=0.60\pm 0.05`$. We will adopt this as the best estimate of the interstellar polarization.

The Galactic extinction is E(B-V) = 0.014 (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis, 1998), which would produce a maximum degree of polarization of 0.13% (Serkowski, Mathewson & Ford, 1975) – too small to account for the 0.6% interstellar polarization. According to Serkowski, Mathewson & Ford (1975), the observed interstellar polarization implies that the total extinction to the supernova is larger than E(B-V) = 0.067, with the extinction by the host galaxy being larger than 0.053.

The wavelength dependence of the interstellar polarization gives reasonable estimates of the properties of the dust particles on the line of sight to the supernova. A fit to the empirical formula (Serkowski, Mathewson & Ford, 1975; Wilking, Lebofsky & Rieke, 1982) with the Sept. 9 data binned to 60 nm is shown in Figure 8. The fit shows that the wavelength at which the polarization reaches maximum is $`\lambda _{max}=514\pm 10`$ nm. For comparison, the Galactic value of $`\lambda _{max}`$ is around 550 nm. The fit implies that the dust that is responsible for the interstellar polarization is similar to that of the Galaxy. Adopting the relation $`R_v=(5.6\pm 0.3)10^4\lambda _{max}`$ (Serkowski, Mathewson & Ford, 1975; Larson, Whittet & Hough, 1996; Whittet et al., 2001), we found that $`R_v=2.88\pm 0.15`$.

The above analysis yields a polarization position angle of 45o for the interstellar polarization. This implies that the magnetic field is parallel to the disk of the host galaxy (cf. Figure 1).

### 4.2 Decomposition of the Polarization

With the above choice of interstellar polarization, we can now decompose the observed polarization into the two components as described in the introduction to §4. The new coordinates are given by rotating the original coordinate systems counter-clockwise so that the Q-axis overlaps the dominant axis in the new coordinate system. The dominant axis is determined to be at position angle $`\alpha `$ = -26.57o through a linear fit to the data points on the Q - U plot of Sept. 26. We have rotated the Q - U coordinate system by 26.57o clockwise so that the dominant axis points toward the center of the data cluster on the Q - U plot. The components parallel and perpendicular to the dominant axis are given by

$$P_d=(QQ_{ISP})\mathrm{cos}\alpha +(UU_{ISP})\mathrm{sin}\alpha ,$$
$`(1)`$
and

$$P_o=(QQ_{ISP})\mathrm{sin}\alpha +(UU_{ISP})\mathrm{cos}\alpha ,$$
$`(2)`$
where $`P_d`$ and $`P_o`$ are the polarization components parallel to the dominant axis and orthogonal to that axis, respectively, and QISP and UISP are the Stokes parameters of the interstellar polarization.

To understand the physical meaning of the new coordinate system, it is useful to start from the simple spheroid models described in Höflich et al. (1996) and Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997). In those models, the polarization is produced by electron scattering through an aspherical atmosphere, and the spectropolarimetric lines are formed because of line scattering. Such a geometry would produce a single line on the Q - U plot, with the wavelength region that suffered the most line scattering being most de-polarized and hence the closest to the origin. Such an ideal system apparently does not apply to SN 2001el where, as can be clearly seen, the Q - U vectors show significant scatter around the dominant axis. The spheroid model can be modified to account for the scatter. For example, chemical clumps and filaments are reasonable sources for deviations from the single axis geometry.

Under the modified spheroid scenario, the dominant axis most likely measures the global departure of the photosphere from spherical symmetry. In the case of an axially symmetric spheroid, $`P_o`$ measures the deviations and fluctuations from axial symmetry.

$`P_d`$ and $`P_o`$ are plotted in Figure 9 where it can be seen that the $`P_o`$ components are flat for these observations except for the spectral features due to a few strong lines. Most of the continuum polarization is recorded in $`P_d`$. The wavelength at which the degree of polarization reaches maximum was around 740 nm on Sept. 26, moved to about 670 nm on Oct. 1, and to 550 nm on Oct. 9. The $`P_d`$ distribution became practically flat on Oct. 18 and Nov. 9. The fact that the Oct. 18 and Nov. 9 polarization spectra are flat again supports our choice of interstellar polarization. The polarized flux of the dominant component $`P_d`$ peaked at 650 nm, 610 nm, and 550 nm on Sept. 26, Oct. 1, and Oct 9, respectively, and became flat on Oct. 18 and Nov. 9. For the spheroid model of Höflich et al. (1996) and Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997), the blueward evolution of the peak of the polarized flux indicates that the last scattering region was moving toward zones with increasing electron temperature. Polarized spectral features are unambiguously detected around Si II 635.5 nm and the Ca II IR triplet, especially in the first two peaks.

### 4.3 Polarization of the Si II 635.5 Line

The evolution of the Si II 635.5 nm line is shown in Figure 10. On Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, before optical maximum, the Si II 635.5 line is clearly polarized. On the plot for Sept. 26, $`P_d`$ shows a peak in the velocity range from -10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to 0 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with a sharp drop at the -10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ edge. The $`P_o`$ component is practically flat, but with a broad weak dip from around -20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to +10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. On the Q - U plot, the data points of the Si II line form an ellipse elongated along the dominant axis. Similar polarization behavior is seen in Figure 10b. The degree of polarization decreased to less than 0.2% on data taken on Oct. 9 and afterwards. Note the displacement of the matter moving at +20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ from that at -20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and the suggestion of a “loop” in the Q-U plane for the matter from 0 to -10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in Figure 10a. In Figure 10b the highest velocity components have merged in the Q - U plane, but the suggestion of a “loop” for the 0 to -10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ component remains.

The feature centered in the range -25,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to -20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is especially interesting. It shows peak-to-valley polarization variations of 0.3% and 0.2% on Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, respectively. This feature could be reasonably attributed to a neighboring line; but it is also consistent with being the silicon counter-part of the high-velocity feature observed most clearly in the Ca II IR triplet.

### 4.4 Polarization of the Ca II IR Triplet

The strongest polarization is observed for the high velocity Ca II IR triplet, as shown in Figure 11. The polarization around 800 nm reached 0.7% on Sept 29 and Oct 1 while the high velocity component in the flux spectrum was still strong. The polarization decreased in strength rapidly with the redward evolution of the high velocity component in the total flux spectrum. The polarization data suggest that the lowest velocity matter in this high-velocity feature might be at about 17,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ if the feature is Ca II. On Oct. 9, the Ca II line close to the photosphere (at -12,500 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) becomes spectroscopically stronger than the high-velocity component. It is worth noting that no peculiar evolution of the polarization feature was observed to be associated with the emergence of the lower velocity Ca II feature.

In the Q - U plane the orientation, especially of the high velocity feature, is at an angle of about 60o to the principal axis in the Sept. 29 and Oct. 1 data. This means that the high velocity calcium represents a very distinct geometrical as well as velocity component in the explosion, with the difference in the orientation being about 30o in the object. Taken together, the velocity separation, the large amplitude of the polarization, and the different polarization angle all imply that this feature is a kinematically and geometrically separate high-velocity component that is enriched in calcium.

## 5 The Structure of the SN 2001el Ejecta

The polarization evolution allows us to extract some useful information about the ejecta structure. For simplicity, we will assume that close to the photosphere the ejecta can be modeled as a prolate or oblate spheroid. We define the asphericity of the spheroid as the ratio of the major to minor axes ratio minus 1, expressed as a percentage. This spheroid reproduces the dominant axis of asymmetry. The photosphere itself may be irregularly structured, so the spheroid is only an approximation. The relation between this geometric asymmetry and the angular distribution of the luminosity for an electron-scattering atmosphere is taken from Höflich (1991) and Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich (1997).

### 5.1 Continuum Polarization

For the maximum degree of polarization to be 0.7% on Sept 26 and Oct 1, an asphericity of 25% would be required for an ellipse observed along the equator (Höflich, 1991; Howell et al., 2001). The 0.7% was, however, observed only for the 800 nm feature associated with the high-velocity Ca II IR triplet. If we think that the high-velocity component does not represent the global geometry of the photosphere, the maximum degree of polarization would be 0.2 – 0.3% from the mean polarization spectrum on the dominant axis $`P_d`$ shown in Fig. 8 (a), (b), and (c). This is considerably smaller, but would still require asymmetries around 10 – 15 percent at the photosphere. The asphericity would be larger if the ellipsoid were viewed in a direction other than along the equator. This asymmetry could be produced by a distortion in the density distribution or in the excitation by $`\gamma `$-ray deposition (Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich, 1997; Howell et al., 2001; Höflich, Khokhlov & Wang, 2001). This amount of asymmetry could lead to luminosity-viewing angle dependence with dispersion in brightness on the order of 0.1 magnitude even for otherwise identical events. We return to this possibility in §7.

Small scale inhomogeneities in the chemistry, density, or excitation must be present to account for the fact that the data points on the Q – U plot do not fall on a single line, but show significant scatter around the dominant axis. Clumps of radioactive 56Ni at the photosphere could produce these small scale, random components as irregularities in the excitation. It would be interesting to try to model the number of clumps necessary to generate this granularity, but since the polarization represents a vector addition of the individual components, this is not a trivial excercise. We leave it for the future.

Further insight into this structure that deviates from the dominant axis may be obtained from the variation of the polarization angle with time and wavelength. With the adopted interstellar polarization, the principle component, $`P_d`$, changes sign with wavelength from blue to red. In the pre-maximum spectra (see the first two panels of Figure 9). A flip of the polarization vector can occur if the location of an energy source changes with respect to the photosphere. As discussed for SN 1993J (Tran et al., 1997; Höflich, 1995a), if the 56Ni source is well below the photosphere, the flux is radial, but the flux acquires a tangential component if the energy source is close to the photosphere. This “skin effect” can cause a flip in the polarization angle. In 2001el, the flip of $`P_d`$ with wavelength may be the result of such a “skin effect” in combination with the frequency-dependent opacity. In the blue, the photosphere is formed at much larger radii (by a factor of 2) compared to the red. If an excitation blob is buried in the blue but revealed in the red, the polarized flux will be determined by the radial and tangential flux, respectively, with an associated difference in the orientation of the polarization.

In SN Ia, this flip of the sign of the polarization along the dominant axis might be due to a single large 56Ni clump revealed at the photosphere in the red Höflich (1995a). Such a single dominant blob would have to fall off the dominant geometric axis to produce the sign flip. Alternatively, there could be a distribution of a number of small blobs that are on average concentrated along the preferred axis. In this case the sign flip could occur when a number of these clumps are exposed, first in the red, by the receding photosphere. If this were the case, both the dominant polarization axis and the dispersion around it might be attributed to a common origin.

About 1 to 2 weeks after maximum light, the photosphere has receded well into the 56Ni rich region and, consequently, the effects of anisotropic excitation and ionization will vanish as the $`\gamma `$-ray deposition becomes smooth (Höflich et al., 2002). The polarization is then expected to become small, consistent with the observations (see the last panel in Figure 9).

### 5.2 Line Polarization

The most dramatic aspect of the polarization of SN 2001el is the feature at 800nm. This behavior of the Ca II IR triplet may provide a key to understanding the departure from axial symmetry. Among the possibilities to explain the strong high-velocity Ca II IR triplet in absorption at 22,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ are a spherical shell, dense clumps, some of which fall along the line of sight, or a torus that intersects the line of sight to the photosphere of the supernova. As noted in §3, the sharp edge to the photospheric component of the Ca II IR triplet, implies that the density of Ca drops off beyond the photosphere before the high-velocity component is encountered. The high-velocity component is thus a distinct geometrical component, not simply a monotonic continuation of the calcium to high velocity in the ejecta.

As remarked in §3, the high-velocity Ca II absorption line seems to be especially strong in SN 2001el. The strength in SN 2001el could be due to physical differences in this one event, but it could also be that this high-velocity feature is ubiquitous, that its presence is transient, and that its amplitude is sensitive to viewing angle. If the high-velocity Ca II is distributed aspherically in all SN Ia, then SN 2001el may have just presented us with a lucky line of sight. There are relatively few cases in which observations have been made before maximum light, but in that situation, some evidence for a high-velocity feature is often seen, but evidence for a feature as strong and as disconnected in velocity space from the photospheric component as that in SN 2001el is, so far, unique to this event.

The existence and strength of the pre-maximum Ca II high-velocity component provides constraints on its physical nature. Whether the high-velocity Ca II component in SN 2001el is a single structure like a filament, a torus, dense clumps or some other geometry, it could partially obscure the photosphere and make the photosphere appear asymmetric in the absorption lines. This would add another component to the polarization caused by an intrinsically aspherical photosphere. If this structure were an axially-symmetric torus or a prominent filament, the axis of symmetry would have to be different from the symmetry axis of the photosphere to account for the orientation of the high-velocity calcium feature in the Q - U plane. If this component were caused by a calcium-rich clump, then the clump must be displaced from the principal axis. If the feature is caused by a distribution of calcium-rich clumps, then this distribution must deviate significantly from the dominant axis of the photosphere.

If the interpretation of the high-velocity component as a torus were correct, then, statistically, one expects a correlation between the strength of the high-velocity absorption component and the size of its polarization. This would still be true for an asymmetric distribution of clumps, for instance if a surrounding torus were itself clumpy, but would not be true if the clumps responsible for obscuring the photosphere were themselves distributed isotropically around the explosion so there were no net effect of orientation angle.

The Si II 635.5 nm line falls predominantly along the $`P_d`$ axis in the Sept. 29 data (Fig. 9a) when the high velocity Ca shows a distinct orientation along the $`P_o`$ axis. The fact that in the Q – U plot, the Si II line also forms a “loop” on Sept. 26 and Oct. 1 shows that the Si II 635.5 nm line also cannot be explained only by an axially-symmetric spheroid. The Si “loop” might show some preference to an orientation along the $`P_o`$ axis in the Oct. 1 data (Figure 10b). This suggests that there might be a high velocity Si counter-part to the high velocity Ca, but the evidence is not conclusive; nevertheless, it is possible that the Si II line shares the same geometry as the Ca II line. If true, this would be an important constraint on the physical nature of the high-velocity feature.

## 6 Physical Models for Asymmetries

How, then, might one account for a principle polarization axis of SN 2001el, the dispersion about that axis and, especially, the detached, high-velocity feature seen so strongly in SN 2001el? Detailed modeling with 3-D radiative transfer is required to fully understand the polarization data (Höflich et al., 1996; Wang, Wheeler, & Höflich, 1997; Howell et al., 2001). This analysis will be presented elsewhere. Here we will discuss some of the physical possibilities.

As outlined in the Introduction, there are a variety of ways that systematic asymmetries could be imposed on the explosion of a SN Ia: rotation of the exploding star, an accretion disk, the presence of a binary companion, or plumes of combustion products. Some of these could define the dominant axis, others could account for varying orientation axes and still others for the dispersion observed around the dominant axis. Some affects of rotation have been sketched in Howell (2001) and we will not repeat them here. (Marietta et al., 2000) show that the impact of the supernova ejecta with the secondary star, assumed to fill its Roche lobe, creates a hole in the ejecta with an angular size of $`30`$o in the high-velocity ejecta and with an angular size $`40`$o in the low-velocity ejecta, or 7%-12% of the ejecta’s surface. This effect might be able to induce the small photospheric polarization along the dominant axis that we report here, and it might not be observable in all SN Ia due to orientation effects. We will return to the possible effects of an accretion disk below.

The greatest challenge in the current observations is to account for the high-velocity shell of calcium-rich material. The low-velocity Ca II seems to share the velocity, the degree of polarization, and the polarization angle with the photosphere. By contrast, the high-velocity matter defined by the 800 nm feature differs from the photosphere in velocity (by definition), in the degree of polarization, in the polarization angle, in the optical thickness, and in the filling factor. If the Ca II identification is correct, the high-velocity matter is physically and geometrically detached from the lower-velocity material on the basis of the sharp edges of the absorption lines. The depth of high velocity feature requires that there must be two zones of Ca II. These zones differ by so much in geometry, dynamics and column density that it is difficult to accommodate them in an exploding star of only one component. The impressive homogeneity of SN Ia does not leave much room for major individual peculiarities. This is an additional constraint every model of SN 2001el needs to satisfy. We will sketch here and critique several possibilities.

### 6.1 The Mass of High-Velocity Ejecta

In order to make a high-velocity shell of calcium-rich material modestly optically thick so that it can obscure a patch of the photosphere and induce a significant polarization feature, there must be a substantial mass of high-velocity calcium. A simple static atmosphere argument suggests the following. Taking an effective opacity of order 1 cm2 gm-1 and shell radius and thickness of order $`10^{15}`$ cm, the mass of calcium must be of order $`5\times 10^3f\kappa ^1R_{15}^2`$ M to give an optical depth of order unity, where $`f`$ is the filling factor of the high-velocity shell.

A more rigorous approach is to consider the Sobolev optical depth of the line:

$$\tau =\chi c\rho \frac{dr}{dv},$$
(1)
where dr/dv = t in a homologously expanding atmosphere and $`\chi `$ is the integrated line opacity given by

$$\chi =\frac{\pi e^2}{m_ec}\frac{f_{ul}n_l}{\nu _{ul}\rho }\left(1\frac{g_ln_u}{g_un_l}\right),$$
(2)
where $`f_{ul}`$ and $`\nu _{ul}`$ are the oscillator strength and frequency for the line that represents a transition form the lower (l) to upper (u) levels. Neglecting the second term in parenthesis involving the statistical weights and writing the population in the lower level as $`n_l=n_{Ca}exp(E_l/kt)`$, where $`n_{Ca}`$ is the total number of calcium atoms, the Sobolev optical depth can be written as:

$$\tau =\frac{\pi e^2}{m_ec}f_{ul}n_{Ca}\lambda _{ul}te^{E_l/kt},$$
(3)
where $`E_l`$ is the energy of the lower level. With $`f_{ul}3`$, $`E_l=60,533`$ cm-1 = $`1.2\times 10^{11}`$ erg, and a temperature of about 5000 K, the Sobolev optical depth can be written as:

$$\tau =2.6\times 10^{15}\rho _{Ca}t_6,$$
(4)
where $`t_6`$ is the time in units of $`10^6`$ s. The mass of calcium in a spherical shell with filling factor, f, can thus be written:

$$M_{Ca}=0.002M_{}\frac{f\tau R_{15}^2\mathrm{\Delta }R_{15}}{t_6}.$$
(5)
For a putative Ca line at 20,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with a width of $`5000`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the mass of calcium would thus be $`M_{Ca}=0.004f\tau t_6^2`$ M. For optical depth about unity and filling factor of unity, we again need of order 0.01 M of calcium to form the high-velocity feature.

In regions of the white dwarf where Ca is formed by incomplete Si burning, the layers are typically 60 percent Si, 30 percent S and 3 percent Ca (Höflich et al., 2002). If this composition is typical of the high-velocity shell, then the total mass of this matter might be of order 0.1 $`f\tau t_6^2`$ M. As remarked earlier, if the paucity of this strong, well-separated feature in many SN Ia is an indication of the covering factor, then $`f`$ could be substantially less than unity. Given the relative strengths of observable lines, it is plausible that the Ca would give the strongest observed line, with Si weak, and S difficult to observe, as may be the case for SN 2001el.

### 6.2 The Geometry of High-Velocity Ejecta

A related perspective is to consider the shape and depth of the high-velocity feature. The feature is approximately flat bottomed (ignoring the double minimum in the 26 Sept spectrum of Figure 2). This suggests that the line is optically thick over a substantial velocity range. The line should thus be saturated if the feature obscured the whole photosphere. From the depth of the line (about 30 percent of the adjacent continuum flux), we deduce that the geometry can be blocking no more than about 30o of the photosphere. Note that if the high-velocity component extended to higher latitudes, there should be a low-velocity component along the line of sight. The rather sharp edges of the high-velocity feature and its lack of overlap with the photospheric component of the Ca II IR triplet again suggest that the portion of this high-velocity feature with finite optical depth does not blanket the photosphere. Some sort of torus geometry could satisfy this constraint. To account for what may be common weaker high-velocity features in SN Ia, some of the high-velocity calcium may have to be distributed more isotropically, but with modest optical depth. If this component is present in SN 2001el, then it must be in a manner that low-velocity wings on the high-velocity feature are weak. Whether a self-consistent model can be developed will require more rigorous consideration with multi-dimensional transfer.

### 6.3 The Origin of High-Velocity Ejecta

One possibility is that this high-velocity matter is produced in the explosion in the region of partial Si burning. In this case, a stream of matter must be ejected from relatively deep within the explosion as, perhaps, a filament of high-velocity matter. This might happen through some sort of “pinch” effect. A particularly interesting possibility is that this high velocity feature represents an artifact of the process of deflagration to detonation transition. The physics of this process is not yet well understood, but one possibility being explored is that the transition occurs between a rising plume of burned material and a sinking plume of fuel. Ignition of a detonation at the sheet-like interface between these structures might, in some circumstances, dynamically eject a ballistic blob of matter that were subject to partial Si burning. The hint that some silicon may share the high velocity kinematics of the calcium would be consistent with the composition expected in this picture. If this were the case, the high-velocity feature would be an important clue to the burning dynamics.

Another intriguing possibility is that the high-velocity matter is a clue to the binary nature of the progenitor. In particular, it is clear that any matter in an accretion disk should be swept up into a high-velocity layer, possibly maintaining a toroidal structure. The question then arises as to how this matter could be calcium-rich.

The most commonly envisaged scenario would have a hydrogen-rich disk. The collision of the most rapidly moving outer parts of the WD ejecta, exceeding 10,000 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, would heat any such disk to high temperatures. If the post-shock conditions were optically thick and dominated by radiation pressure, the temperature would be of order $`1.2\times 10^8`$ K $`\rho ^{1/4}v_9^{1/2}`$ where $`v_9`$ is the shock velocity in units of $`10^9`$ cm s-1. If the post-shock matter can radiate so that the shock energy goes into purely the thermal motion of particles, then the temperature could be as high as $`4\times 10^9v_9^2`$ K. The density is expected to be low, less than 1 gm cm-3, so while the post-shock temperature could be sufficiently high that burning might occur, the burning timescale could be too long compared to the dynamical timescale, which will be of order a second at the inner edge of the disk at the boundary with the WD. If it occurs, the burning in this hydrogen-rich situation would correspond to the fast rp-process (Wallace & Woosley, 1981). Burning would break out of the CNO cycle at this high temperature and proceed to higher atomic weight matter. The resulting composition may not be calcium-rich, but dominated by more neutron rich species.

Another interesting possibility is that disk is composed of helium, the product of transfer from a helium star. Such a disk might be denser, depending on the the temperature and transfer rate (Cannizzo, 1984), and the composition would allow burning along the standard $`\alpha `$-chain with the possible production of Ca, along with Si and S, through incomplete Si burning. While it is clearly premature to reach any conclusions regarding the nature of this high-velocity Ca feature, the prospect that it represents the shock burning of a helium-rich accretion disk would give both direct indications that the explosion occurred in a binary system and that a helium, not hydrogen, companion were involved.

## 7 Discussion and Conclusions

Understanding the 3-D nature of SNe Ia is an important key to the underlying physics, and polarimetry is the tool to probe multi-dimensional effects.

The current observations provide strong evidence that the normal Type Ia SN 2001el is polarized before optical maximum. The polarization cannot be explained by a purely axially symmetric configuration; rather several components are required: 1) an axially symmetric component with polarization of about 0.2 to 0.3 % with a well-defined axis. This component indicates that the overall asphericity of the photosphere is around 10 percent and perhaps more, depending on viewing angle. This global asymmetry may be produced by either asymmetric excitation and ionization or it may reflect asymmetry in the overall density distribution. 2) A component to account for the spread in the position angle with wavelength around the principal axis in the Q - U plane that indicates additional structure with more random orientation. This component could be caused by clumps in the chemical structure. If the clumps are related to the 56Ni distribution, they could be related to irregularities in the excitation expected from the RT instabilities during the deflagration phase of the explosion (Khokhlov, 2002). 3) The high degree of polarization in the high-velocity component of the Ca II IR triplet. This component, which is at an angle of about 60o to the principal axis in the Q - U plane, can be understood qualitatively as an obscuration of a portion of the photosphere by a filament, clumps, or perhaps a torus-like structure expanding at high velocity. The sharp blue edge of the photospheric component of the Ca II IR triplet and the relatively sharp red edge of the high-velocity component indicates the origin of the high-velocity component in a separate structure well separated from the photosphere. The fact that the line is not saturated suggests that the filling factor is substantially less than unity.

Excitation due to the non-uniform distribution of 56Ni provides a natural explanation for observations of the photospheric polarization, and hence clues to the burning process, but other explanations are possible. The merger scenario, would, for instance, predict a global asymmetry due to the large expected rotation of the merged object. The merger scenario is not likely for SN 1994D, which showed evidence for explosive carbon burning in the outer layers (i.e. IR Mg II lines), but no evidence for unburned carbon (Bowers et al., 1997; Wheeler et al., 1998) as would be expected in a merger scenario. Since SN 2001el is in many ways similar to SN 1994D, a similar argument might be applied, but the IR observations were not made. It may be that detailed analysis and models can address this issue from the polarization and other data at hand for SN 2001el.

The polarization data provide interesting perspectives on the physics of SN Ia phenomena, but there are many open questions. What is the origin of the high velocity Ca II in SN 2002el? Could the Ca II shell be the relic of an accretion disk? If so, what is the composition of the accretion disk and could it be burned into Ca? We will focus on these issues in separate studies incorporating detailed theoretical modeling. The model-dependent interpretations of the high-velocity CaII feature could be put on a much firmer basis if future observations confirm a) a correlation between the strength and the degree of polarization of the Ca II IR triplet, b) the $``$ 30o difference in the polarization angle of the continuum and of the high-velocity matter, and c) a correlation between the polarization of the continuum and the polarization of the high-velocity Ca II, presuming their respective dominant axes are defined by the equator and the rotation or magnetic axis.

Finally, we return to the implications of asymmetry for the use of SNe Ia for cosmology. A 10 percent asymmetry of the photosphere would not cause systematic difficulties for using SN Ia as distance indicators at the current level of accuracy of about 20 percent. This level of asymmetry would, however, cause a directional dependence of the luminosity of order 0.1m (Höflich, 1991), and a corresponding, but smaller, dispersion in the brightness-decline relation of SNe Ia. This dispersion depends on the viewing-angle dependence of the luminosity variation and, thus, the nature of the asymmetry. The angle dependence of the luminosity of a single SN Ia will not, in general, vary as the line of sight to the equator, that is, as cos$`\theta `$. Thus, even in a large sample, this effect is not expected to average out. Whether the remaining bias is slightly positive or slightly negative depends on the specifics of the asymmetric luminosity distribution. Whether this bias can be eliminated to the few percent level needed to determine the cosmological equation of state by applying the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{15}`$ correction or by employing the CMAGIC method (Wang et al., 2003) remains to be seen. We note that if such effects are present, then SN Ia are even more homogeneous than they seem from current dispersions in peak brightness. In principle, if the angle-dependent luminosity could be determined and removed quadratically from the data, the dispersion could be reduced from current values.

More observations are required to understand the polarization behavior of SN Ia and its effect on large samples of supernovae. Once it is known from polarization statistics the phases in which the polarization is small, more weight can be assigned to the “low-risk” phases of the light curve. Even if there remains a bias due to the angle-dependence of the emitted flux, this may have no affect in a large sample as long as the bias is independent of redshift. The relative changes in peak magnitude with redshift that are required to determine the equation of state of the “dark energy” would not be affected by such a constant bias. Even then a redshift dependent bias might be small if the only effect were that of an ellipsoidal variation of rather small amplitude for which the luminosity variation with angle were small and gentle. The pernicious question is whether there is an effect on the polarization and hence luminosity distribution that was a rather strong function of observer orientation and that also depended on redshift. An example would be polarization induced by the collision of the supernova ejecta with a companion star that might only be seen from a limited range of observer viewing angles coupled with SN Ia being dominated nearby by SN Ia in systems with non-degenerate companions and at large redshifts by mergers that left no companion, or vice versa. Further study of the polarization of SN Ia should elucidate this issue.

Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the European Southern Observatory for the generous allocation of observing time. They especially thank the staff of the Paranal Observatory for their constant and untiring support of this project in service mode. This work was supported in part by NASA Grant NAG5-7937 to PAH and by NSF Grant AST 0098644 to JCW.