• DOI:10.1093/mnras/stt1612
• Corpus ID: 118535155

The death of massive stars - II. Observational constraints on the progenitors of type Ibc supernovae

@inproceedings{Eldridge2013TheDO,
  title={The death of massive stars - II. Observational constraints on the progenitors of type Ibc supernovae},
  author={J. J. Eldridge and Morgan Fraser and Steven J. Smartt and Justyn R. Maund and R. Mark Crockett},
  year={2013}
}

• J. Eldridge, M. Fraser, +2 authors R. Crockett
• Published 9 January 2013
• Physics

The progenitors of many Type II core-collapse supernovae (SNe) have now been identified directly on pre-discovery imaging. Here, we present an extensive search for the progenitors of Type Ibc SNe in all available pre-discovery imaging since 1998. There are 12 Type Ibc SNe with no detections of progenitors in either deep ground-based or Hubble Space Telescope archival imaging. The deepest absolute BVR magnitude limits are between −4 and −5 mag. We compare these limits with the observed Wolf–Rayet population in the Large Magellanic Cloud and estimate a 16 per cent probability that 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 light-curve modelling of Ibc SNe, we find both incompatible with Wolf– Rayet stars with initial masses >25 M being the only progenitors. We present binary evolution models that fit these observational constraints. Stars in binaries with initial masses 20 M lose their hydrogen envelopes in binary interactions to become low-mass helium stars. They retain a low-mass hydrogen envelope until ≈104 yr before core-collapse; hence, it is not surprising that Galactic analogues have been difficult to identify.