A comprehensive optical search for pre-explosion outbursts from the quiescent progenitor of SN~2023ixf

TL;DR

This study searches for optical pre-explosion outbursts of SN~2023ixf, finding no significant activity within five years of explosion and constraining the properties of any potential precursor outbursts.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive optical search for pre-explosion outbursts of SN~2023ixf and constrains their brightness, duration, and mass ejection, suggesting multiple mechanisms for dense CSM formation.

Findings

No significant precursor outbursts detected within five years of explosion.

Precursor outbursts, if any, were shorter than 100-200 days and fainter than -8 to -9 mag.

Dense CSM may not originate solely from eruptive mass loss of a single RSG progenitor.

Abstract

We perform a comprehensive search for optical precursor emission at the position of SN~2023ixf using data from the DLT40, ZTF and ATLAS surveys. By comparing the current data set with precursor outburst hydrodynamical model light curves, we find that the probability of a significant outburst within five years of explosion is low, and the circumstellar material (CSM) ejected during any possible precursor outburst is likely smaller than $\sim$0.015\msun. By comparing to a set of toy models, we find that, if there was a precursor outburst, the duration must have been shorter than $\sim$100 days for a typical brightness of $M_{r}\simeq-9$ mag or shorter than 200 days for $M_{r}\simeq-8$ mag; brighter, longer outbursts would have been discovered. Precursor activity like that observed in the normal type II SN~2020tlf ($M_{r}\simeq-11.5$) can be excluded in SN~2023ixf. If the dense CSM inferred by early flash spectroscopy and other studies is related to one or more precursor outbursts, then our observations indicate that any such outburst would have to be faint and only last for days to months, or it occurred more than five years prior to the explosion. Alternatively, any dense, confined CSM may not be due to eruptive mass loss from a single red supergiant (RSG) progenitor. Taken together, the results of SN~2023ixf and SN~2020tlf indicate that there may be more than one physical mechanism behind the dense CSM inferred around some normal type II SNe.