SN2023ixf in Messier 101: the twilight years of the progenitor as seen by Pan-STARRS

TL;DR

This study analyzes pre-explosion data of SN2023ixf in M101, finding no evidence of pre-supernova outbursts and constraining the progenitor as a dusty red supergiant with specific luminosity, temperature, and mass.

Contribution

It provides the first long-term pre-explosion photometric analysis of SN2023ixf, constraining the progenitor and ruling out significant pre-supernova outbursts.

Findings

No detectable pre-supernova outbursts to magnitude -7.

Progenitor consistent with a dusty red supergiant of 14-20 solar masses.

Pre-explosion data align with previous studies on progenitor properties.

Abstract

The nearby type II supernova, SN2023ixf in M101 exhibits signatures of early-time interaction with circumstellar material in the first week post-explosion. This material may be the consequence of prior mass loss suffered by the progenitor which possibly manifested in the form of a detectable pre-supernova outburst. We present an analysis of the long-baseline pre-explosion photometric data in $g$, $w$, $r$, $i$, $z$ and $y$ filters from Pan-STARRS as part of the Young Supernova Experiment, spanning $\sim$5,000 days. We find no significant detections in the Pan-STARRS pre-explosion light curve. We train a multilayer perceptron neural network to classify pre-supernova outbursts. We find no evidence of eruptive pre-supernova activity to a limiting absolute magnitude of $-7$. The limiting magnitudes from the full set of $gwrizy$ (average absolute magnitude $\approx$-8) data are consistent with previous pre-explosion studies. We use deep photometry from the literature to constrain the progenitor of SN2023ixf, finding that these data are consistent with a dusty red supergiant (RSG) progenitor with luminosity $\log\left(L/L_\odot\right)$$\approx$5.12 and temperature $\approx$3950K, corresponding to a mass of 14-20 M$_\odot$