Type II supernova diversity

Abstract

It is now firmly established that at a significant fraction of hydrogen-rich type II supernovae (SNe II) arise from red supergiant progenitors. However, a large diversity of SN properties exist, and it is presently unclear how this can be understood in terms of progenitor differences and pre-SN stellar evolution. In this contribution, I present the diversity of SN II V-band light-curves for a large sample of SNe II, and compare these to photometry of SNe II which have progenitor mass constraints from pre-explosion imaging.

arXiv commentInvited review to appear in IAU FM16: "Stellar Behemoths - Red Supergiants Across the Local Universe"