Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 759, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/759/1/L13
Keywords
galaxies: individual (M95); supergiants; supernovae: general; supernovae: individual (SN2012aw)
Categories
Funding
- STFC
- ERC
- Royal Society
- PRIN-INAF
- project Supernovae Variety and Nucleosynthesis Yields
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/I001123/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/I001123/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Core-collapse supernovae (SNe) are the spectacular finale to massive stellar evolution. In this Letter, we identify a progenitor for the nearby core-collapse SN 2012aw in both ground-based near-infrared and space-based optical pre-explosion imaging. The SN itself appears to be a normal Type II Plateau event, reaching a bolometric luminosity of 10(42) erg s(-1) and photospheric velocities of similar to 11,000 km s(-1) from the position of the H beta P-Cygni minimum in the early SN spectra. We use an adaptive optics image to show that the SN is coincident to within 27 mas with a faint, red source in pre-explosion HST+WFPC2, VLT+ISAAC, and NTT+SOFI images. The source has magnitudes F555W = 26.70 +/- 0.06, F814W = 23.39 +/- 0.02, J = 21.1 +/- 0.2, K = 19.1 +/- 0.4, which, when compared to a grid of stellar models, best matches a red supergiant. Interestingly, the spectral energy distribution of the progenitor also implies an extinction of A(V) > 1.2 mag, whereas the SN itself does not appear to be significantly extinguished. We interpret this as evidence for the destruction of dust in the SN explosion. The progenitor candidate has a luminosity between 5.0 and 5.6 log L/L-circle dot, corresponding to a zero-age main-sequence mass between 14 and 26 M-circle dot (depending on A(V)), which would make this one of the most massive progenitors found for a core-collapse SN to date.
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