We present images taken with the GMOS instrument on Gemini-South, in excellent (<0.5 arcsec) seeing, of SN 2001ig in NGC 7424, ~1000 days after explosion. A point source seen at the site of the SN is shown to have colours inconsistent with being an H II region or a SN 1993J-like remnant, but can be matched to a late-B through late-F supergiant with A_V<1. We believe this object is the massive binary companion responsible for periodic modulation in mass loss material around the Wolf-Rayet progenitor which gave rise to significant structure in the SN radio light curve.
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0603336,
title = {A postmortem investigation of the Type IIb supernova 2001ig},
author = {Stuart D. Ryder and Clair E. Murrowood and Raylee A. Stathakis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0603336},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. Fig. 1 resolution degraded to meet size limitations; full resolution version available from http://www.aao.gov.au/local/www/sdr/pubs/sn2001ig_gmos.ps.gz