Enhanced mass-loss rate evolution of stars with $\gtrsim 18 M_\odot$ and missing optically-observed type II core-collapse supernovae

TL;DR

This study models stars with initial masses over 18 solar masses, suggesting that enhanced mass loss during the instability strip can explain the observed supernova progenitor gap and predict the types of supernovae they produce.

Contribution

It introduces a model with increased mass-loss rates to explain the missing high-mass supernova progenitors and predicts the resulting supernova types and observability.

Findings

Mass-loss rate must increase by at least a factor of ten.

Approximately 20% of these stars explode as unobscured SNe II or IIb.

65-70% of stars end as SNe Ibc, with some obscured SNe II.

Abstract

We evolve stellar models with zero-age main sequence (ZAMS) mass of $M_{\rm ZAMS} \gtrsim 18 M_\odot$ under the assumption that they experience an enhanced mass-loss rate when crossing the instability strip at high luminosities and conclude that most of them end as type Ibc supernovae (SNe Ibc) or dust-obscured SNe II. We explore what level of enhanced mass-loss rate during the instability strip would be necessary to explain the `red supergiant (RSG) problem'. This problem refers to the dearth of observed core-collapse supernovae progenitors with $M_{\rm ZAMS} \gtrsim 18 M_\odot$. Namely, we examine what enhanced mass loss rate could make it possible for all these stars actually to explode as CCSNe. We find that the mass-loss rate should increase by a factor of at least about ten. We reach this conclusion by analyzing the hydrogen mass in the stellar envelope and the optical depth of the dusty wind at the explosion, and crudely estimate that under our assumptions only about a fifth of these stars explode as unobscured SNe II and SNe IIb. About 10-15 per cent end as obscured SNe II that are infrared-bright but visibly very faint, and the rest, about 65-70 per cent, end as SNe Ibc. However, the statistical uncertainties are still too significant to decide whether many stars with $M_{\rm ZAMS} \gtrsim 18M_\odot$ do not explode as expected in the neutrino driven explosion mechanism, or whether all of them explode as CCSNe, as expected by the jittering jets explosion mechanism.