Evidence for a compact wolf-rayet progenitor for the type Ic supernova PTF10vgv

A. Corsi*, E. O. Ofek, A. Gal-Yam, D. A. Frail, D. Poznanski, P. A. Mazzali, S. R. Kulkarni, M. M. Kasliwal, I. Arcavi, S. Ben-Ami, S. B. Cenko, A. V. Filippenko, D. B. Fox, A. Horesh, J. L. Howell, I. K.W. Kleiser, E. Nakar, I. Rabinak, R. Sari, J. M. SilvermanD. Xu, J. S. Bloom, N. M. Law, P. E. Nugent, R. M. Quimby

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present the discovery of PTF10vgv, a Type Ic supernova (SN) detected by the Palomar Transient Factory, using the Palomar 48 inch telescope (P48). R-band observations of the PTF10vgv field with P48 probe the SN emission from its very early phases (about two weeks before R-band maximum) and set limits on its flux in the week prior to the discovery. Our sensitive upper limits and early detections constrain the post-shock-breakout luminosity of this event. Via comparison to numerical (analytical) models, we derive an upper-limit of R ≲ 4.5 R (R ≲ 1 R ) on the radius of the progenitor star, a direct indication in favor of a compact Wolf-Rayet star. Applying a similar analysis to the historical observations of SN1994I yields R ≲ 1/4 R for the progenitor radius of this SN.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberL5
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume747
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2012

Keywords

  • supernovae: general
  • supernovae: individual (PTF 10vgv)

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