Detection of an Outburst One Year Prior to the Explosion of SN 2011ht

Creators: Fraser, M.; Magee, M.; Kotak, R.; Smartt, S. J.; Smith, K. W.; Polshaw, J.; Drake, A. J.; Boles, T.; Lee, C.-H.; Burgett, W. S.; Chambers, K. C.; Draper, P. W.; Flewelling, H.; Hodapp, K. W.; Kaiser, N.; Kudritzki, R.-P.; Magnier, E. A.; Price, P. A.; Tonry, J. L.; Wainscoat, R. J.; Waters, C.

Abstract

Using imaging from the Pan-STARRS1 survey, we identify a precursor outburst at 287 and 170 days prior to the reported explosion of the purported Type IIn supernova (SN) 2011ht. In the Pan-STARRS data, a source coincident with SN 2011ht is detected exclusively in the z_(P1) and y_(P1)-bands. An absolute magnitude of M_z ≃ –11.8 suggests that this was an outburst of the progenitor star. Unfiltered, archival Catalina Real Time Transient Survey images also reveal a coincident source from at least 258 to 138 days before the main event. We suggest that the outburst is likely to be an intrinsically red eruption, although we cannot conclusively exclude a series of erratic outbursts which were observed only in the redder bands by chance. This is only the fourth detection of an outburst prior to a claimed SN, and lends credence to the possibility that many more interacting transients have pre-explosion outbursts, which have been missed by current surveys.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 September 16; accepted 2013 November 10; published 2013 November 22. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) have been made possible through contributions of the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, Queen's University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1238877, and the University of Maryland. The CSS survey is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNG05GF22G issued through the Science Mission Directorate Near-Earth Objects Observations Program. The CRTS survey is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants AST-0909182. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. R.K. acknowledges funding from STFC. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement no. [291222] (PI : S. J. Smartt). We thank Anders Jerkstrand for useful discussion on the late stages of stellar evolution, and the anonymous referee for a careful reading of the paper.

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