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Published February 20, 2017 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Candidate Progenitor of the Type IIn SN 2010jl Is Not an Optically Luminous Star

Abstract

A blue source in pre-explosion Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images falls within the 5σ astrometric error circle (~0farcs24) derived from post-explosion ground-based imaging of SN 2010jl. At the time the ground-based astrometry was published, however, the SN had not faded sufficiently for post-explosion HST follow-up observations to determine a more precise astrometric solution and/or confirm if the pre-explosion source had disappeared, both of which are necessary to ultimately disentangle the possible progenitor scenarios. Here we present HST/WFC3 imaging of the SN 2010jl field obtained in 2014, 2015, and 2016 when the SN had faded sufficiently to allow for new constraints on the progenitor. The SN, which is still detected in the new images, is offset by 0farcs061 ± 0farcs008 (15 ± 2 pc) from the underlying and extended source of emission that contributes at least partially, if not entirely, to the blue source previously suggested as the candidate progenitor in the WFPC2 data. This point alone rules out the possibility that the blue source in the pre-explosion images is the exploding star, but may instead suggest an association with a young (<5–6 Myr) cluster and still argues for a massive (>30 M_⊙) progenitor. We obtain new upper limits on the flux from a single star at the SN position in the pre-explosion WFPC2 and Spitzer/IRAC images that may ultimately be used to constrain the progenitor properties.

Additional Information

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2016 October 28; revised 2016 December 24; accepted 2017 January 15; published 2017 February 22. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. It is also based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Support was provided by NASA through grants GO-13341, GO-14149, and GO-14668 from STScI. A.V.F.'s group is also grateful for generous financial assistance from the Christopher R. Redlich Fund, the TABASGO Foundation, and NSF grant AST-1211916. Part of the research was carried out at JPL. E.D. acknowledges NASA's ADP13-0094 grant for support on this project. R.J.F. gratefully acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-1518052 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The authors would like to thank Christa Gall, Rubab Khan, Jon Mauerhan, and Arka Sarangi for their helpful discussions. We would especially like to thank the Spitzer Help Desk at IPAC for their useful support with the MOPEX tool.

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August 22, 2023
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