Related papers: Finding Supernova Ia Progenitors with the Chandra …

The progenitors of hydrogen-poor core-collapse supernovae (SNe) of types Ib, Ic and IIb are believed to have shed their outer hydrogen envelopes either by extremely strong stellar winds, characteristic of classical Wolf-Rayet stars, or by…

We present new Chandra X-ray observations and detailed astrometry of the field of the type Ia supernova 2007on, for which the detection of a likely progenitor in archival Chandra data was recently reported. No source is detected in the new…

We propose two new means of identifying the main class of progenitors of Type Ia supernovae--single or double degenerate: (i) If the range of supernova properties is significantly determined by the range of viewing angles of non-spherically…

Cao et al. (2013) reported a possible progenitor detection for the type Ib supernovae iPTF13bvn for the first time. We find that the progenitor is in fact brighter than the magnitudes previously reported by approximately 0.7 to 0.2 mag with…

We present analysis of Chandra archival, pre-explosion data of the positions of three nearby (< 25 Mpc) type Ia supernovae, SN2011iv, SN2012cu & SN2012fr. No sources corresponding to the progenitors were found in any of the observations.…

The nature of the progenitor system[s] of Type Ia Supernovae is still unclear. In this contribution I review the projects that have been undertaken to answer this question and the results they have led to. The conclusion is that, as of…

Although there is a nearly universal agreement that type Ia supernovae are associated with the thermonuclear disruption of a CO white dwarf, the exact nature of their progenitors is still unknown. The single degenerate scenario envisages a…

Type Ia supernovae are exploding stars that are used to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe and are responsible for most of the iron ever produced. Although there is general agreement that the exploding star is a white dwarf…

I summarize what we have learned about the nature of stars that ultimately explode as core-collapse supernovae from the examination of images taken prior to the explosion. By registering pre-supernova and post-supernova images, usually…

We report on a large survey for double degenerate (DD) binaries as potential progenitors of type Ia supernovae with the UVES spectrograph at the ESO VLT (SN Ia Progenitor surveY - SPY). About 560 white dwarfs were checked for radial…

We present HST/WFPC2, GALEX and Chandra observations of the position of the type Ia supernova SN2007sr in the Antennae galaxies, taken before the explosion. No source is found in any of the observations, allowing us to put interesting…

We present an analysis of Chandra observations of the position of ten nearby (< 25 Mpc) type Ia supernovae, taken before the explosions. No sources corresponding to progenitors were found in any of the observations. We calculated upper…

We report the results of a high-spatial-resoltion search for the progenitor of type Ic supernova SN 2004gt, using the newly commissioned Keck laser-guide star adaptive optics system (LGSAO) along with archival Hubble Space Telescope data.…

A source coincident with the position of the type IIb supernova (SN) 2008ax is identified in pre-explosion Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations in three optical filters. We identify and constrain two…

The recent detection of H-alpha emission in the supernova Type Ia SN 2002ic could be taken to mean that the elusive progenitor systems of Type Ia supernovae have finally been identified. At first glance, the observation appears to support a…

The explosive fate of massive stripped Wolf-Rayet (W-R) stars is a key open question in stellar physics. An appealing option is that hydrogen-deficient W-R stars are the progenitors of some H-poor supernova (SN) explosions of Types IIb, Ib,…

In a canonical model, the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are accreting, nuclear-burning white dwarfs (NBWDs), which explode when the white dwarf reaches the Chandrasekhar mass, M_C. Such massive NBWDs are hot (kT ~100 eV),…

Type-Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are important distance indicators, element factories, cosmic-ray accelerators, kinetic-energy sources in galaxy evolution, and endpoints of stellar binary evolution. It has long been clear that a SN Ia must be…

Type Ia supernovae are thought to be thermonuclear explosions of accreting white dwarfs that reach a critical mass limit. Despite their importance as cosmological distance indicators, the nature of their progenitors has remained…

Knowledge of the progenitors of core-collapse supernovae is a fundamental component in understanding the explosions. The recent progress in finding such stars is reviewed. The minimum initial mass that can produce a supernova has converged…