Pre-Supernova Eruptions Triggered by Sudden Energy Deposition in Low-Mass Core-Collapse Supernova Progenitors

TL;DR

This study models how sudden energy releases in low-mass supernova progenitors can cause pre-explosion eruptions, affecting observable signals and providing insights into the final stages of stellar evolution.

Contribution

It introduces hydrodynamic simulations of pre-supernova eruptions triggered by energy deposition, establishing a relation between ejecta mass and energy gained, and predicts faint precursor light curves.

Findings

Ejecta mass scales with energy gained by the envelope.

Shock passage can alter supernova light curve morphology.

Precursor signals are faint and infrared-bright, often below observed thresholds.

Abstract

In low-mass core-collapse supernova (CCSN) progenitors, nuclear burning beyond oxygen can become explosive under degenerate conditions, triggering eruptive mass loss before the final explosion. We investigate such pre-SN eruptions using \texttt{SNEC} hydrodynamic simulations and realistic stellar models, parameterizing the nuclear energy deposition as a fraction of the binding energy of the combined He layer and H-rich envelope. For the lowest-mass model (9 $M_\odot$), the ejecta mass ($M_{\rm ej}$) scales with the energy gained by the H-rich envelope via a power law (index$\sim$3.5). Across 9-10 $M_\odot$, this relation shows limited scatter within a factor of $\sim$2.6, enabling an estimation of the gained energy from $M_{\rm ej}$. The shock passage also flattens the bound envelope, which can affect the SN light curve morphology and provide another diagnostic for the eruption. Then, we compute the associated precursor light curves for the 9 $M_\odot$ model with the multi-group radiative-transfer code \texttt{STELLA}. These signals are typically faint, with bolometric luminosities of $\sim10^{39}$ erg s$^{-1}$ lasting hundreds of days. Their cool black-body spectra make them brighter in the infrared, yet several magnitudes fainter than observed pre-SN precursors at the threshold for full envelope ejection. To aid future studies, we make our post-eruption stellar profiles and precursor light curves publicly available.