Interacting supernovae from photoionization-confined shells around red supergiant stars

Abstract

Betelgeuse, a nearby red supergiant, is a runaway star with a powerful stellar wind that drives a bow shock into its surroundings. This picture has been challenged by the discovery of a dense and almost static shell that is three times closer to the star than the bow shock and has been decelerated by some external force. The two physically distinct structures cannot both be formed by the hydrodynamic interaction of the wind with the interstellar medium. Here we report that a model in which Betelgeuse's wind is photoionized by radiation from external sources can explain the static shell without requiring a new understanding of the bow shock. Pressure from the photoionized wind generates a standing shock in the neutral part of the wind and forms an almost static, photoionization-confined shell. Other red supergiants should have significantly more massive shells than Betelgeuse, because the photoionization-confined shell traps up to 35 per cent of all mass lost during the red supergiant phase, confining this gas close to the star until it explodes. After the supernova explosion, massive shells dramatically affect the supernova lightcurve, providing a natural explanation for the many supernovae that have signatures of circumstellar interaction.

22 pages, 8 figures, authors' version, accepted for publication in Nature; minor differences may exist compared with published version; final version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13522

References in corpus (12)

• Pre-Supernova Evolution of Massive Single and Binary Stars
• Dust and the type II-plateau supernova 2004et
• Red supergiants as potential Type IIn supernova progenitors: Spatially resolved 4.6 micron CO emission around VY CMa and Betelgeuse
• Light Curve Modeling of Superluminous Supernova 2006gy: Collision between Supernova Ejecta and Dense Circumstellar Medium
• Numerical models of collisions between core-collapse supernovae and circumstellar shells
• The enigmatic nature of the circumstellar envelope and bow shock surrounding Betelgeuse as revealed by Herschel. I. Evidence of clumps, multiple arcs, and a linear bar-like structure
• Forming a constant density medium close to long gamma-ray bursts
• Late-time observations of SN2006gy: Still Going Strong
• Double bow shocks around young, runaway red supergiants: application to Betelgeuse
• Mass loss of massive stars near the Eddington luminosity by core neutrino emission shortly before their explosion
• The Diffuse Nature of Stromgren Spheres
• Diffuse continuum transfer in H II regions

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Observational constraints on the progenitors of core-collapse supernovae : the case for missing high mass stars
• Confined Dense Circumstellar Material Surrounding a Regular Type II Supernova: The Unique Flash-Spectroscopy Event of SN 2013fs
• Luminous Blue Variables and superluminous supernovae from binary mergers
• A population of highly energetic transient events in the centres of active galaxies
• Endurance of SN 2005ip after a decade: X-rays, radio, and H-alpha like SN 1988Z require long-lived pre-supernova mass loss
• An extremely energetic supernova from a very massive star in a dense medium
• Modeling UV Radiation Feedback from Massive Stars: I. Implementation of Adaptive Ray Tracing Method and Tests
• Pulsations of red supergiant pair-instability supernova progenitors leading to extreme mass loss
• The High Cadence Transient Survey (HiTS) - I. Survey design and supernova shock breakout constraints
• Bow shock nebulae of hot massive stars in a magnetized medium
• A magnetic massive star has experienced a stellar merger
• Supernova 2017eaw: molecule and dust formation from infrared observations
• The Betelgeuse Project: Constraints from Rotation
• Wind nebulae and supernova remnants of very massive stars
• 3D MHD astrospheres: applications to IRC-10414 and Betelgeuse
• SN 2009ip: Constraining the latest explosion properties by its late-phase light curve
• Core-collapse supernovae in dense environments -- particle acceleration and non-thermal emission
• On the bipolarity of Wolf-Rayet nebulae
• PION: Simulating bow shocks and circumstellar nebulae
• Resurrection of type IIL supernova 2018ivc: Implications for a binary evolution sequence connecting hydrogen-rich and -poor progenitors
• Production of secondary particles in heavy nuclei interactions in supernova remnants
• Supernovae in colliding-wind binaries: observational signatures in the first year