English

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

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2026-01-15 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

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 MM_\odot), the ejecta mass (MejM_{\rm ej}) scales with the energy gained by the H-rich envelope via a power law (index\sim3.5). Across 9-10 MM_\odot, this relation shows limited scatter within a factor of \sim2.6, enabling an estimation of the gained energy from MejM_{\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 MM_\odot model with the multi-group radiative-transfer code \texttt{STELLA}. These signals are typically faint, with bolometric luminosities of 1039\sim10^{39} erg s1^{-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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.09063,
  title  = {Pre-Supernova Eruptions Triggered by Sudden Energy Deposition in Low-Mass Core-Collapse Supernova Progenitors},
  author = {Shuai Zha and Han Lin and Xuefei Chen and Zhanwen Han},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.09063},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

18 pages, 9 figures, accepted in ApJ, erupted stellar profiles and precursor light curves available at doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.31295