Related papers: A bias-corrected luminosity function for red super…
Analysis of pre-explosion imaging has confirmed red supergiants (RSGs) as the progenitors to Type II-P supernovae (SNe). However, extracting the RSG's luminosity requires assumptions regarding the star's temperature or spectral type and the…
I present progenitor luminosities ($L$) for a sample of 112 Type II supernovae (SNe II), computed directly from progenitor photometry and the bolometric correction technique, or indirectly from empirical correlations between progenitor…
By comparing the properties of Red Supergiant (RSG) supernova progenitors to those of field RSGs, it has been claimed that there is an absence of progenitors with luminosities $L$ above $\log(L/L_\odot) > 5.2$. This is in tension with the…
There are a growing number of nearby SNe for which the progenitor star is detected in archival pre-explosion imaging. From these images it is possible to measure the progenitor's brightness a few years before explosion, and ultimately…
The red supergiant (RSG) problem refers to the observed dearth of luminous RSGs identified as progenitors of Type II supernovae (SNe II) in pre-SN imaging. Understanding this phenomenon is essential for studying pre-SN mass loss and the…
The inevitable fate of massive stars in the initial mass range of ~8--30 M_{Sun} in the red supergiant (RSG) phase is a core-collapse supernova (SN) explosion, although some stars may collapse directly to a black hole. We know that this is…
The red supergiant (RSG) problem, which describes the apparent lack of high-luminosity progenitors detected in Type II supernova (SN) pre-images, has been a contentious topic for two decades. We re-assess this problem using a new RSG…
The `Red Supergiant Problem' describes the claim that the brightest Red Supergiant (RSG) progenitors to type II-P supernovae are significantly fainter than RSGs in the field. This mismatch has been interpreted by several authors as being a…
It has been well established from a variety of observations that red supergiants (RSGs) loose a lot of mass in stellar wind. Dust formed in this emitted gas over a few decades before core-collapse can lead to substantial extinction and…
We present observations of SN2009hd in the nearby galaxy M66. This SN is one of the closest to us in recent years but heavily obscured by dust, rendering it unusually faint in the optical, given its proximity. We find that the observed…
A central goal in supernova (SN) research is to identify and characterize their progenitors. However, this is very difficult due to the limited archival images with sufficient depth and spatial resolution required for direct progenitor…
We examine the problem of estimating the mass range corresponding to the observed red supergiant (RSG) progenitors of Type IIP supernovae. Using Monte Carlo simulations designed to reproduce the properties of the observations, we find that…
We present the results of a 10.5 yr, volume limited (28 Mpc) search for supernova (SN) progenitor stars. We compile all SNe discovered within this volume (132, of which 27% are type Ia) and determine the relative rates of each sub-type from…
The mass-loss rates of red supergiant stars (RSGs) are poorly constrained by direct measurements, and yet the subsequent evolution of these stars depends critically on how much mass is lost during the RSG phase. In 2012 the Geneva…
The stars that end their lives as supernovae (SNe) have been directly observed in only a handful of cases, due mainly to the extreme difficulty in identifying them in images obtained prior to the SN explosions. Here we report the…
The direct detection of core-collapse supernova (SN) progenitor stars is a powerful way of probing the last stages of stellar evolution. However, detections in archival Hubble Space Telescope images are limited to about one per year. Here,…
The progenitors of low-luminosity Type II-Plateau supernovae (SNe II-P) are believed to be red supergiant (RSG) stars, but there is much disparity in the literature concerning their mass at core collapse and therefore on the main sequence.…
The progenitors of Type II-P supernovae (SN) have been confirmed to be red supergiants. However, the upper mass limit of the directly probed progenitors is much lower than that predicted by current theories, and the accurate determination…
We present a detailed analysis of the progenitor and its local environment for the recently discovered type II supernova (SN) 2024ggi at a distance of about 6.7~Mpc, by utilizing the pre-explosion images from the Hubble Space Telescope…
We present high quality ground-based VRI images of the site of the Type II-P SN1999em (in NGC1637) taken before explosion, which were extracted from the CFHT archive. We determine a precise position of the SN on these images to an accuracy…