Circumstellar Material Ejected Violently by A Massive Star Immediately before its Death

Abstract

Type II supernovae represent the most common stellar explosions in the Universe, for which the final stage evolution of their hydrogen-rich massive progenitors towards core-collapse explosion are elusive. The recent explosion of SN 2023ixf in a very nearby galaxy, Messier 101, provides a rare opportunity to explore this longstanding issue. With the timely high-cadence flash spectra taken within 1-5 days after the explosion, we can put stringent constraints on the properties of the surrounding circumstellar material around this supernova. Based on the rapid fading of the narrow emission lines and luminosity/profile of $\mathrm{H}\alpha$ emission at very early times, we estimate that the progenitor of SN 2023ixf lost material at a mass-loss rate $\dot{\mathrm{M}}\approx 6\times 10^{-4}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }{\mathrm{a}}^{-1}$ over the last 2-3 years before explosion. This close-by material, moving at a velocity $v_{\mathrm{w}}\approx 55\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, accumulates a compact CSM shell at the radius smaller than $7\times 10^{14}$ cm from the progenitor. Given the high mass-loss rate and relatively large wind velocity presented here, together with the pre-explosion observations made about two decades ago, the progenitor of SN 2023ixf could be a short-lived yellow hypergiant that evolved from a red supergiant shortly before the explosion.

arXiv comment10 pages, 6 figures in main body, Science Bulletin (Available online 14 September 2023)

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• A Shock Flash Breaking Out of a Dusty Red Supergiant
• Probing the Shock Breakout Signal of SN 2024ggi from the Transformation of Early Flash Spectroscopy
• SN 2023ixf -- an average-energy explosion with circumstellar medium and a precursor
• Early-time gamma-ray constraints on cosmic-ray acceleration in the core-collapse SN 2023ixf with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Asymmetries and Circumstellar Interaction in the Type II SN 2024bch
• Imaging the innermost circumstellar environment of the red supergiant WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The Immediate, Exemplary, and Fleeting echelle spectroscopy of SN 2023ixf: Monitoring acceleration of slow progenitor circumstellar material, driven by shock interaction
• One Year of SN 2023ixf: Breaking Through the Degenerate Parameter Space in Light-Curve Models with Pulsating Progenitors
• Massive stars exploding in a He-rich circumstellar medium $-$ X. Flash spectral features in the Type Ibn SN 2019cj and observations of SN 2018jmt
• Forecasting Supernova Observations with the CSST: I. Photometric Samples
• SN 2016iog: A fast declining Type II-L supernova with an ultra-faint tail, persistently interacting with circumstellar material
• SN 2023ixf: interaction signatures in the spectrum at 445 days