No hot and luminous progenitor for Tycho's supernova

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae have proven vital to our understanding of cosmology, both as standard candles and for their role in galactic chemical evolution; however, their origin remains uncertain. The canonical accretion model implies a hot and luminous progenitor which would ionize the surrounding gas out to a radius of $\sim$10--100 parsecs for $\sim$100,000 years after the explosion. Here we report stringent upper limits on the temperature and luminosity of the progenitor of Tycho's supernova (SN 1572), determined using the remnant itself as a probe of its environment. Hot, luminous progenitors that would have produced a greater hydrogen ionization fraction than that measured at the radius of the present remnant ($\sim$3 parsecs) can thus be excluded. This conclusively rules out steadily nuclear-burning white dwarfs (supersoft X-ray sources), as well as disk emission from a Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf accreting $\gtrsim 10^{-8}{M}_{\odot }$yr${}^{-1}$ (recurrent novae). The lack of a surrounding Strömgren sphere is consistent with the merger of a double white dwarf binary, although other more exotic scenarios may be possible.

17 pages, 2 figures, including supplementary information. Original accepted manuscript (before copyediting/formatting by Nature Astronomy)

References in corpus (10)

• Radiative recombination data for modelling dynamic finite-density plasmas
• Tycho Brahe's 1572 supernova as a standard type Ia explosion revealed from its light echo spectrum
• Discriminating the Progenitor Type of Supernova Remnants with Iron K-Shell Emission
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• i-process nucleosynthesis and mass retention efficiency in He-shell flash evolution of rapidly accreting white dwarfs
• Constraints on the progenitor system and the environs of SN 2014J from deep radio observations
• Progenitor constraints on the Type-Ia supernova SN2011fe from pre-explosion Hubble Space Telescope HeII narrow-band observations
• Diffuse Gas in Retired Galaxies: Nebular Emission Templates and Constraints on the Sources of Ionization
• The Three-Dimensional Expansion of the Ejecta from Tycho's Supernova Remnant
• Constraining magnetic field amplification in SN shocks using radio observations of SNe 2011fe and 2014J

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Radio Evolution of Supernova Remnants Including Non-linear Particle Acceleration: Insights from Hydrodynamic Simulations
• Excluding super-soft X-ray sources as progenitors for four Type Ia supernovae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Radio Emission from Interstellar Shocks: Young Type Ia Supernova Remnants and the Case of N 103B in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Low-frequency radio absorption in Tycho's supernova remnant
• Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs are the progenitors of a small fraction of Type Ia supernovae according to nucleosythesis constraints
• Synthesis of radioactive elements in novae and supernovae and their use as a diagnostic tool
• LIN 358: A symbiotic binary accreting above the steady hydrogen fusion limit
• Supersoft X-Ray Nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Linking the properties of accreting white dwarfs with the ionization state of their ambient medium
• Optical emission line spectra of symbiotic binaries