Mass discrepancy analysis for a select sample of Type II-Plateau supernovae

BERSTEN, MELINA CECILIA; MARTINEZ, LAUREANO

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS

EDP SCIENCES S A

Año: 2019 vol. 629

0004-6361

The detailed study of supernovae (SNe) and their progenitors allows to better understand the evolution of massive stars and how these end their lives. Despite its importance, the range of physical parameters for the most common type of explosion, the type II supernovae (SNe II), is still unknown. In particular, previous studies of type II-Plateau supernovae (SNe II-P) showed a discrepancy between the progenitor masses inferred from hydrodynamic models and those determined from the analysis of direct detections in archival images. Our goal is to derive physical parameters (progenitor mass, radius, explosion energy and total mass of nickel) through hydrodynamical modelling of light curves and expansion velocity evolution for a select group of 6 SNe II-P (SN 2004A, SN 2004et, SN 2005cs, SN 2008bk, SN 2012aw, and SN 2012ec) that fulfilled the following three criteria: 1) they have enough photometric and spectroscopic monitoring to allow for a reliable hydrodynamical modelling; 2) there is a direct progenitor detection; and 3) there is a confirmation of the progenitor identification via its disappearance in post-explosion images. We then compare the masses obtained by our hydrodynamic models with those obtained by direct detections of the progenitors to test the existence of such a discrepancy. As opposed to some previous works, we find a good agreement between both methods.