CaltechAUTHORS
Published February 7, 2013 | Version Supplemental Material + Submitted
Journal Article Open

An outburst from a massive star 40 days before a supernova explosion

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science
  • 2. ROR icon University of Southampton
  • 3. ROR icon University of Oxford
  • 4. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 5. ROR icon Carnegie Observatories
  • 6. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 7. ROR icon University of California, Santa Barbara
  • 8. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 9. ROR icon Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network
  • 10. ROR icon University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
  • 11. ROR icon Tel Aviv University
  • 12. ROR icon The University of Texas at Austin
  • 13. ROR icon Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Abstract

Some observations suggest that very massive stars experience extreme mass-loss episodes shortly before they explode as supernovae, as do several models. Establishing a causal connection between these mass-loss episodes and the final explosion would provide a novel way to study pre-supernova massive-star evolution. Here we report observations of a mass-loss event detected 40 days before the explosion of the type IIn supernova SN 2010mc (also known as PTF 10tel). Our photometric and spectroscopic data suggest that this event is a result of an energetic outburst, radiating at least 6 × 10^(47) erg of energy and releasing about 10^(−2) solar masses of material at typical velocities of 2,000 km s^(−1). The temporal proximity of the mass-loss outburst and the supernova explosion implies a causal connection between them. Moreover, we find that the outburst luminosity and velocity are consistent with the predictions of the wave-driven pulsation model, and disfavour alternative suggestions.

Additional Information

© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Received 14 October; accepted 18 December 2012. We thank E. Quataert and M. Cantiello for discussions. The VLA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This paper is based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope as part of the Palomar Transient Factory project. We are grateful for the assistance of the staff at the various observatories where data were obtained. We acknowledge support from the Arye Dissentshik career development chair, the Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science, the Israeli Ministry of Science, the Royal Society, the NSF, the Israeli Science Foundation, the German-Israeli Foundation, ERC, the US Department of Energy, Gary and Cynthia Bengier, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the Christopher R. Redlich Fund, and the TABASGO Foundation. Author Contributions: E.O.O. initiated the search for precursor outbursts and wrote the paper, M.S. wrote the image-subtraction pipeline, S.B.C. reduced the Swift-UVOT observations,M.M.K. reduced the P60 observations, A.G.-Y. helped with the spectroscopic analysis, L.B., E.N. and N.J.S. contributed to the theoretical interpretation, A.V.F. assisted with the spectroscopy and edited the paper, D.A.H., D.M. and J.M.S. conducted the spectroscopic observations or reductions, O.Y. helped write the paper, and S.R.K., I.A., J.S.B., R.L., P.E.N. and J.S. built the PTF hardware and software infrastructure.

Attached Files

Submitted - 1302.2633.pdf

Supplemental Material - nature11877-s1.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
37378
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20130307-133705176

Related works

Describes
https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2633 (URL)

Funding

Arye Dissentshik career development chair
Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science
Ministry of Science (Israel)
Royal Society
NSF
Israel Science Foundation
German-Israeli Foundation for Research and Development
European Research Council (ERC)
Department of Energy (DOE)
Gary and Cynthia Bengier
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
Christopher R. Redlich Fund
TABASGO Foundation

Dates

Created
2013-03-07
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-09
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Palomar Transient Factory, Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)