Discovery of the Dust-Enshrouded Progenitor of SN 2008S with Spitzer

By J. Prieto, Matthew D. Kistler, T. Thompson, H. Yüksel, C. Kochanek, Krzysztof Zbigniew Stanek, J. Beacom, P. Martini, A. Pasquali, J. Bechtold. 2008

177 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report the discovery of the progenitor of the recent Type IIn SN 2008S in the nearby galaxy NGC 6946. Surprisingly, it was not found in deep, preexplosion optical images of its host galaxy taken with the Large Binocular Telescope, but only through examination of archival Spitzer mid-IR data. A source coincident with the SN 2008S position is clearly detected in the 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 μm IRAC bands, showing no evident variability in the 3 years prior to the explosion, yet is undetected at 3.6 and 24 μm. The distinct presence of ~440 K dust, along with stringent LBT limits on the optical fluxes, suggests that the progenitor of SN 2008S was engulfed in a shroud of its own dust. The inferred luminosity of ≈3.5 × 104 L☉ implies a modest mass of ~10 M☉. We conclude that objects like SN 2008S are not exclusively associated with the deaths or outbursts of very massive η Carinae-like objects. This conclusion holds based solely on the optical flux limits even if our identification of the progenitor with the mid-IR source is incorrect.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8e77632f19109e435499eda77ff23ea54ad8c0a1

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Citations in the corpus

Luminous blue variable eruptions and related transients: diversity of progenitors and outburst properties (2010, methodology): “Based on the [Ca ii] emission lines and associations with dusty environments (Smith et al. 2009a, 2010; Prieto et al. 2008), however, it is possible that the progenitor could potentially be intrinsically more luminous than this.”
Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars (2015, background): “The former estimates may not be directly applicable since the circumstellar dust around the progenitor stars can be destroyed in explosions— as in the case of SN2012aw and SN2008S.”
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS IN ELECTRON CAPTURE SUPERNOVAE OF ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH STARS (2008, background): “This may result in a deeply dust-enshrouded object such as the progenitor of SN 2008S (Prieto et al. 2008; Thompson et al. 2008).”
THE COSMIC CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA RATE DOES NOT MATCH THE MASSIVE-STAR FORMATION RATE (2011, background): “The progenitor of SN 2008S has been identified on Spitzer pre-explosion images to be a highly dustenshrouded∼ 10M⊙ star (Prieto et al. 2008, 2010).”
DISCOVERY OF PRECURSOR LUMINOUS BLUE VARIABLE OUTBURSTS IN TWO RECENT OPTICAL TRANSIENTS: THE FITFULLY VARIABLE MISSING LINKS UGC 2773-OT AND SN 2009ip (2009, methodology): “Deriving a likely initial mass around 10–12 M⊙ from the luminosity (e.g., Prieto et al. 2008) depends upon the assumption that the progenitor was a cool EAGB star at the uppermost tip of its AGB.”
A NEW CLASS OF LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS AND A FIRST CENSUS OF THEIR MASSIVE STELLAR PROGENITORS (2008, background): “…complemented by statistical studies of supernova environments within their host galaxies, which provide indirect evidencfor associations between certain types of supernovae and broad classes of progenitors (e.g., James & Anderson 2006; Kelly et al. 2008; Prieto et al. 2008; Anderson & James 2008).”
Production of dust by massive stars at high redshift (2011, background): “Alternatively, a ECSN could occur as a low-luminosity Type IIn SN such as SN 2008S (Prieto et al, 2008).”
The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: first candidates (2014, methodology): “Although Prieto et al. (2008b) discusses the progenitor of SN 2008S using LBT observations taken before before the explosion, this data was not included c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000 in our analysis.”
Revealing the High-Redshift Star Formation Rate with Gamma-Ray Bursts (2008, unknown): “We also note that the recent mid-IR detection of the progenitor of SN 2008S implies that some short-lived stars do produce dust (Prieto et al. 2008).”
Progenitor mass constraints for core-collapse supernovae from correlations with host galaxy star formation⋆ (2012, background): “Indeed, it appears that the SNIIn and ‘impostor’ family is extremely heterogeneous with the possibility of a significant fraction arising from lower mass stars in dusty environments (e.g. Prieto et al. 2008; Thompson et al. 2009; Kochanek et al. 2012).”
Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae (2009, background): “The community have been extending this search for the precursor objects and systems to both the Spitzer and Chandra archives (see Section 4.5 and Nelemans et al. 2008, Prieto et al. 2008)”
SN 2008S: An electron-capture SN from a super-AGB progenitor? (2009, methodology): “Prieto et al. (2008) also reported aperture photometry for the individual pre-explosion Spitzer epochs.”
The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: confirmation of a disappearing star (2016, background): “There are also SN “impostors” that arise from self-obscured super-AGB stars — SN 2008Slike transients — that quickly become re-enshrouded in dust (Prieto et al. 2008; Kochanek 2011; Thompson et al. 2009), though some SN “impostors,” from both super-AGB stars and more massive stars, may be…”
Dawes Review 6: The Impact of Companions on Stellar Evolution (2016, background): “ILOTs/ILRTs such as SN 2008S (Prieto et al., 2008), NGC 300 2009OT-1 (Bond et al., 2009), or iPTF10fqs (Kasli- wal et al., 2011) at the luminous end of the gap have been interpreted as faint terminal explosions, because of the complete disappearance of the progenitor after the outburst.”
SPITZER SAGE INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF MASSIVE STARS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD (2009, background): “We note that the rare, dust obscured, luminous progenitors (Prieto et al. 2008; Prieto 2008) of the newly discovered class of transients, including SN2008S (Smith et al. 2009) and NGC 300 OT (Bond et al. 2009; Berger et al. 2009), could be related to the lower luminosity B[e] supergiants, given…”
A Survey About Nothing: Monitoring a Million Supergiants for Failed Supernovae (2008, methodology): “Tests using monitoring data for M81 from the Large Binocular Telescope (Prieto et al. 2008a) found no false positives and formally set a limit that the rate of failed SNe is < 80 times that of normal SNe at 90% confidence.”
Nucleosynthesis in Stars and the Chemical Enrichment of Galaxies (2013, background): “If the explosion energy is low enough, the observed properties of faint supernovae of Type IIn, such as SN2008S and similar transients (Prieto et al. 2008), may also be explained with electron-capture supernovae As described above, stars with M up,Ne < M < 10 M may explode as electron-capture…”
PREPARING FOR AN EXPLOSION: HYDRODYNAMIC INSTABILITIES AND TURBULENCE IN PRESUPERNOVAE (2013, background): “LBVs are generally thought to be very massive stars, but their mass range is known to extend down to 25 M⊙ (Smith et al. 2004) and some of the extragalacitc SN impostors appear to have relatively low-mass progenitors around 8 M⊙ (e.g., Prieto et al. 2008; Thompson et al. 2009).”