The death of massive stars – I. Observational constraints on the progenitors of Type II-P supernovae

By S. Smartt, J. Eldridge, R. M. Crockett, J. R. M. Q. U. B. IoA, Cambridge Dark Cosmology Centre, Copenhagen. 2008

718 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The progenitors of many type II core-collapse supernovae have now been identified directly on pre-discovery imaging. Here we present an extensive search for the progenitors of type Ibc supernovae in all available pre-discovery imaging since 1998. There are 12 type Ibc supernovae with no detections of progenitors in either deep ground-based or Hubble Space Telescope archival imaging. The deepest absolute BV R magnitude limits are between 4 m and 5 m . We compare these limits with the observed Wolf-Rayet population in the Large Magellanic Cloud and estimate a 16 per cent probability we have failed to detect such a progenitor by chance. Alternatively the progenitors evolve significantly before core-collapse or we have underestimated the extinction towards the progenitors. Reviewing the relative rates and ejecta mass estimates from lightcurve modelling of Ibc SNe, we find both incompatible with Wolf-Rayet stars with initial masses > 25M⊙being the only progenitors. We present binary evolution models that fit these observational constraints. Stars in binaries with initial masses . 20M⊙lose their hydrogen envelopes in binary interactions to become low mass helium stars. They retain a low mass hydrogen envelope until � 10 4 years before core-collapse; hence it is not surprising that galactic analogues have been difficult to identify.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/df14ae0ce22dc9ba51fff1d32d00293f1309c50c

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. S. Smartt
2. Stan Woosley
3. N. Smith
4. E. Berger
5. A. Filippenko
6. N. Langer
7. Hans-Thomas Janka
8. C. Conroy

Citations in the corpus

• Gravitationally lensed quasars and supernovae in future wide-field optical imaging surveys (2010, background): “Recent analysis suggests that the fraction of Type IIP SNe may actually be much higher (Smartt et al. 2009).”
• Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars (2015, methodology): “Both of these SNe occurred within the time limit of the survey defined by Smartt et al. (2009) and Eldridge et al. (2013) but are much more distant than the 28 Mpc limit.”
• Stellar sources of dust in the high-redshift Universe (2009, background): “Note that we have no prescriptions for dust production by stars in the mass range (8− 11) M⊙, which evolve as AGB and finally explode as core-collapse SNe (II-P SNe, Smartt et al. 2009).”
• A NEW CLASS OF LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS AND A FIRST CENSUS OF THEIR MASSIVE STELLAR PROGENITORS (2008, methodology): “Using the Smartt et al. (2009) compilation, we find 29 IIP, 4 IIb, 15 Ib/c, 2 IIn (1998S & 2002bu), and 2 IIL supernovae in the last decade.”
• Grids of stellar models with rotation - II. WR populations and supernovae/GRB progenitors at Z = 0.014 (2012, background): “Both models therefore agree with the observations by Smartt et al. (2009), who observed no type II-P SN progenitors with initial masses above about 18M⊙.”
• Low luminosity Type II supernovae - II. Pointing towards moderate mass precursors (2014, methodology): “…e.g. those that explode within ∼30 Mpc. Uncertainties in the stellar evolutionary models used to infer the progenitor mass (e.g. treatment of overshooting and mass-loss) can also lead to different inferred masses, although none of the codes available differ by large factors (Smartt et al. 2009).”
• The diversity of Type II supernova versus the similarity in their progenitors (2016, background): “This is consistent with progenitor studies using archival prediscovery images: SNe II likely come from progenitors in the range 8–16 M⊙ (Smartt et al. 2009; Smartt 2015).”
• Progenitor mass constraints for core-collapse supernovae from correlations with host galaxy star formation⋆ (2012, methodology): “We note that our results are completely independent of those from Smartt et al. (2009), and hence strengthen the argument for SNIIP progenitor masses extending down to low values.”
• TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA RATE MEASUREMENTS TO REDSHIFT 2.5 FROM CANDELS: SEARCHING FOR PROMPT EXPLOSIONS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE (2014, background): “In keeping with observations, our dust models assume that the CC SN population suffers from significantly more dust extinction than the SN Ia population, at all redshifts (e.g. Smartt et al. 2009; Drout et al. 2011; Kiewe et al. 2012; Mattila et al. 2012).”
• A TWO-PARAMETER CRITERION FOR CLASSIFYING THE EXPLODABILITY OF MASSIVE STARS BY THE NEUTRINO-DRIVEN MECHANISM (2015, result): “5 & 0.2 for failed explosions is compatible with a lack of red supergiant Type-IIP SN progenitors above ∼16 M (Smartt et al. 2009) and with a significant excess of the starformation rate compared to the observed SN rate (Horiuchi et al. 2011).”
• Measuring the Progenitor Masses and Dense Circumstellar Material of Type II Supernovae (2017, methodology): “With the exception of the rarer Type IIb and 1987A-like events, pre-explosion imaging obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope exclusively identifies red supergiants (RSGs) as their progenitors (Li et al. 2006; Smartt et al. 2009; Van Dyk et al. 2012).”
• The nebular spectra of SN 2012aw and constraints on stellar nucleosynthesis from oxygen emission lines (2013, background): “2) to the estimated error from the continuum fit in the algorithm (taken as ±20% here). to match the luminosities of rotating models (see discussion in Smartt et al. 2009).”
• PROGENITOR-EXPLOSION CONNECTION AND REMNANT BIRTH MASSES FOR NEUTRINO-DRIVEN SUPERNOVAE OF IRON-CORE PROGENITORS (2012, background): “…explosion energies and nickel masses inferred for observed SNe from lightcurve and spectral analyses as function of the ZAMS mass of the progenitors (e.g., Utrobin & Chugai 2011; Smartt et al. 2009; Smartt 2009) without invoking additional pre-collapse degrees of freedom like rapid core rotation.”
• EVOLUTION OF MASSIVE STARS WITH PULSATION-DRIVEN SUPERWINDS DURING THE RED SUPERGIANT PHASE (2010, background): “This might provide a plausible solution to the so-called RSG problem, i.e. the observed lack of type II-P progenitors with Minit & 16.5± 1.5M⊙(Smartt et al. 2009).”
• The Evolution of Massive Helium Stars, Including Mass Loss (2019, background): “Major adjustments to the star’s outer structure happen during the last roughly 10,000 years its life and suggest that the immediate progenitors of Type Ib and Ic supernovae might appear different from ordinary Wolf-Rayet stars (see also Eldridge et al. 2013).”
• The nature of "dark" gamma-ray bursts (2010, result): “It is interesting to note that theAV distribution of type II-P supernovae (Smartt et al., 2009) (which comprises about 60%of all core-collapse SN), and that of stripped-envelope supernovae (Richardson et al., 2006) (which comprises 3 IIb, 11 Ib and 13 Ic) derived from a comparably sized sample as…”