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Published December 11, 2015 | Published
Journal Article Open

Did the progenitor of SN 2011dh have a binary companion?

Abstract

We present late-time Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet (UV) and optical observations of the site of SN 2011dh in the galaxy M51, ∼1164  days post-explosion. At the supernova (SN) location, we observe a point source that is visible at all wavelengths, which is significantly fainter than the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the yellow supergiant progenitor observed prior to explosion. The previously reported photometry of the progenitor is, therefore, completely unaffected by any sources that may persist at the SN location after explosion. In comparison with the previously reported late-time photometric evolution of SN 2011dh, we find that the light curve has plateaued at all wavelengths. The SED of the late-time source is clearly inconsistent with an SED of stellar origin. Although the SED is bright at UV wavelengths, there is no strong evidence that the late-time luminosity originates solely from a stellar source corresponding to the binary companion, although a partial contribution to the observed UV flux from a companion star cannot be ruled out.

Additional Information

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2015 September 7. Received 2015 September 6; in original form 2015 August 11. First published online October 13, 2015. We are very grateful to Anders Jerkstrand for providing us with access to his late-time model spectra of SN 2011dh. The research of JRM is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. CG acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 306901. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with programme GO-13433 and GO-13345. STSDAS and PYRAF are products of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA for NASA.

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August 20, 2023
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