The Young and Nearby Normal Type Ia Supernova 2018gv: UV-optical Observations and the Earliest Spectropolarimetry

The nondetection of companion stars in SN Ia progenitor systems lends support to the notion of double-degenerate systems and explosions triggered by the merging of two white dwarfs. This very asymmetric process should lead to a conspicuous polarimetric signature. By contrast, observations consistently find very low continuum polarization as the signatures from the explosion process largely dominate over the pre-explosion configuration within several days. Critical information about the interaction of the ejecta with a companion and any circumstellar matter is encoded in the early polarization spectra. In this study, we obtain spectropolarimetry of SN 2018gv with the ESO Very Large Telescope at -13.6 days relative to theB-band maximum light, or similar to 5 days after the estimated explosion-the earliest spectropolarimetric observations to date of any SN Ia. These early observations still show a low continuum polarization (less than or similar to 0.2%) and moderate line polarization (0.30% 0.04% for the prominent Siii lambda 6355 feature and 0.85% 0.04% for the high-velocity Ca component). The high degree of spherical symmetry implied by the low-line and continuum polarization at this early epoch is consistent with explosion models of delayed detonations and is inconsistent with the merger-induced explosion scenario. The dense UV and optical photometry and optical spectroscopy within the first similar to 100 days after the maximum light indicate that SN 2018gv is a normal SN Ia with similar spectrophotometric behavior to SN 2011fe.