Constraining the progenitor of the nearby Type II-P SN 2024ggi with environmental analysis

TL;DR

This study constrains the progenitor mass of the nearby Type II-P supernova 2024ggi using environmental analysis from Hubble Space Telescope images, providing an independent estimate unaffected by circumstellar extinction or brightness variability.

Contribution

It introduces an environmental analysis method to determine supernova progenitor masses, offering an alternative to direct detection methods affected by extinction and variability.

Findings

Progenitor associated with the youngest stellar population (~25.7 Myr).

Derived progenitor initial mass is approximately 10.2 solar masses.

Environmental analysis confirms the progenitor's mass independently.

Abstract

The progenitors of Type II-P supernovae (SN) have been confirmed to be red supergiants. However, the upper mass limit of the directly probed progenitors is much lower than that predicted by current theories, and the accurate determination of the progenitor masses is key to understand the final fate of massive stars. Located at a distance of only 6.72 Mpc, the Type II-P SN 2024ggi is one of the closest SN in the last decade. Previous studies have analyzed its progenitor by direct detection, but the derived progenitor mass may be influenced by the very uncertain circumstellar extinction and pulsational brightness variability. In this work, we try to constrain the progenitor mass with an environmental analysis based on images from the Hubble Space Telescope. We found that stars in the progenitor environment have a uniform spatial distribution without significant clumpiness, and we derived the star formation history of the environment with a hierarchical Bayesian method. The progenitor is associated with the youngest population in the SN environment with an age of log($t$/yr) = 7.41 (i.e. 25.7 Myr), which corresponds to an initial mass of $10.2^{+0.06}_{-0.09}$ $M_\odot$. Our work provides an independent measurement of the progenitor mass, which is not affected by circumstellar extinction and pulsational brightness variability.