Supernova Nebular Spectroscopy Suggests a Hybrid Envelope-Stripping Mechanism for Massive Stars

TL;DR

This study analyzes late-time nebular spectra of stripped-envelope supernovae to determine their progenitors' core structures, revealing evidence for multiple envelope-stripping mechanisms including binary interaction and stellar winds.

Contribution

It introduces a new nebular spectral analysis method that distinguishes progenitor differences, providing insights into the mechanisms behind envelope stripping in massive stars.

Findings

Progenitors of SNe IIb and Ib are similar except for residual hydrogen.

Progenitors of SNe Ic are more massive and lack hydrogen and helium.

Multiple mechanisms, including binary interaction and stellar winds, likely strip the stellar envelopes.

Abstract

When nuclear fuel in the core of a massive star with a zero-age main-sequence mass $M_{\rm ZAMS} \gtrsim 8M_\odot$ is exhausted, the central part of the iron or magnesium core collapses and forms a neutron star or a black hole. At the same time, the material above the collapsing core is rapidly ejected, leading to a stripped-envelope supernova (SESN) explosion if the outer hydrogen envelope of the star was removed before its explosion. The envelope is presumably stripped either via strong stellar winds or due to mass transfer to a companion star in a close binary orbit. It is not clear which process is dominant, and whether different mechanisms are at work for different classes of SESNe; type IIb, Ib, and Ic SNe in order of increasing degree of envelope stripping. In this work, a new analysis of late-time nebular spectra of SESNe is presented, which is more sensitive to differences in the core structure than early-phase spectral analysis. The results show that the progenitors of SNe IIb and Ib are indistinguishable except for the residual amount of hydrogen envelope while the progenitors of SNe Ic are not only deficient in hydrogen and helium, but are also distinctly more massive than SNe IIb and Ib. These findings strongly suggest that more than one mechanism is responsible for the removal of the outer hydrogen envelope and the deeper helium layer, with the former most likely due to binary interaction, and the latter involving a mass-dependent process such as strong stellar winds or episodic pre-explosion mass ejection.