Observed Consequences of Presupernova Instability in Very Massive Stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews the observational consequences of presupernova instability in very massive stars, focusing on how mass loss influences supernova types and the challenges in linking observations to progenitor properties.

Contribution

It emphasizes the observational properties of massive star deaths and discusses the impact of mass loss on supernova diversity and progenitor identification.

Findings

Mass loss shapes supernova types and environments.

Connecting progenitor mass to supernova observations remains challenging.

Various end fates like superluminous and pair instability supernovae are proposed but uncertain.

Abstract

This chapter concentrates on the deaths of very massive stars, the events leading up to their deaths, and how mass loss affects the resulting death. The previous three chapters emphasized the theory of wind mass loss, eruptions, and core collapse physics, but here we emphasize mainly the observational properties of the resulting death throes. Mass loss through winds, eruptions, and interacting binaries largely determines the wide variety of different types of supernovae that are observed, as well as the circumstellar environments into which the supernova blast waves expand. Connecting these observed properties of the explosions to the initial masses of their progenitor stars is, however, an enduring challenge and is especially difficult for very massive stars. Superluminous supernovae, pair instability supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and "failed" supernovae are all end fates that have been proposed for very massive stars, but the range of initial masses or other conditions leading to each of these (if they actually occur) are still very certain. Extrapolating to infer the role of very massive stars in the early universe is essentially unencumbered by observational constraints and still quite dicey.