Abstract
We present high-cadence optical, ultraviolet (UV), and near-infrared data of the nearby (D ≈ 23 Mpc) Type II supernova (SN) 2021yja. Many Type II SNe show signs of interaction with circumstellar material (CSM) during the first few days after explosion, implying that their red supergiant (RSG) progenitors experience episodic or eruptive mass loss. However, because it is difficult to discover SNe early, the diversity of CSM configurations in RSGs has not been fully mapped. SN 2021yja, first detected within ≈ 5.4 hours of explosion, shows some signatures of CSM interaction (high UV luminosity and radio and x-ray emission) but without the narrow emission lines or early light-curve peak that can accompany CSM. Here we analyze the densely sampled early light curve and spectral series of this nearby SN to infer the properties of its progenitor and CSM. We find that the most likely progenitor was an RSG with an extended envelope, encompassed by low-density CSM. We also present archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the host galaxy of SN 2021yja, which allows us to place a stringent upper limit of ≲ 9 M ☉ on the progenitor mass. However, this is in tension with some aspects of the SN evolution, which point to a more massive progenitor. Our analysis highlights the need to consider progenitor structure when making inferences about CSM properties, and that a comprehensive view of CSM tracers should be made to give a fuller view of the last years of RSG evolution.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 31 |
Pages (from-to) | 31 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 935 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Time domain research by the University of Arizona team and D.J.S. is supported by NSF grants AST-1821987, 1813466, 1908972, & 2108032, and by the Heising-Simons Foundation under grant #2020-1864. Research by Y.D., N.M., and S.V. is supported by NSF grants AST-1813176 and AST-2008108. J.E.A. is supported by the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini partnership of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea, and the United States of America. K.A.B. acknowledges support from the DIRAC Institute in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. The DIRAC Institute is supported through generous gifts from the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, and the Washington Research Foundation. The Las Cumbres Observatory team is supported by NSF grants AST-1911225 and AST-1911151, and NASA Swift grant 80NSSC19K1639. The UCSC team is supported in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and by a fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to R.J.F. B.E.T. and his group were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. P.J.B. is partially supported by NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis grant NNX17AF43G “Seeing Core-Collapse Supernovae in the Ultraviolet.” C.A. and B.J.S. are supported by NASA grant 80NSSC19K1717 and NSF grants AST-1920392 and AST-1911074. L.G. and T.E.M.B. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) 10.13039/501100011033 under the PID2020-115253GA-I00 HOSTFLOWS project, from Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) under the PIE project 20215AT016, and by the program Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M. L.G. also acknowledges MCIN, AEI and the European Social Fund (ESF) “Investing in your future” under the 2019 Ramón y Cajal program RYC2019-027683-I. M.G. is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101004719. M.N. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 948381) and by a Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute.
Funding Information:
Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. This research has made use of the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), which is operated by the W. M. Keck Observatory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawai‘ian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Based on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). Based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, Chile, as part of ePESSTO+ (the advanced Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects Survey). ePESSTO+ observations were obtained under ESO programs ID 1103.D-0328 and 106.216C (PI: Inserra). Based in part on observations obtained at the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, which is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações (MCTI/LNA) do Brasil, the US National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). This publication has made use of data collected at Lulin Observatory, partly supported by MoST grant 109-2112-M-008-001. B.E.T. acknowledges parts of this research were carried out on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Based in part on data acquired at the Siding Spring Observatory 2.3 m. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which the SSO stands, the Gamilaraay people, and pay our respects to elders past and present. Observations using Steward Observatory facilities were obtained as part of the large observing program AZTEC: Arizona Transient Exploration and Characterization. We are grateful to the staff at Lick Observatory for their assistance with the Nickel telescope. Research at Lick Observatory is partially supported by a generous gift from Google. The SALT data reported here were taken as part of Rutgers University program 2021-1-MLT-007 (PI: Jha). This research is based on data obtained from the Astro Data Archive at NSF’s NOIRLab. These data are associated with observing programs 2012B-0001 (PI J. Frieman) and 2019B-1009 (PI P. Lira). NOIRLab is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This research is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with program GO-6359 (PI Stiavelli; Hosseinzadeh ). This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This work makes use of observations from the Las Cumbres Observatory network.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science