Discovery, progenitor and early evolution of a stripped envelope supernova iPTF13bvn

The intermediate Palomar Transient Factory reports our discovery of a young supernova, iPTF13bvn, in the nearby galaxy, NGC 5806 (22.5 Mpc). Our spectral sequence in the optical and infrared suggests a Type Ib classification.We identify a blue progenitor candidate in deep pre-explosion imaging withi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cao, Y., Kasliwal, M., Arcavi, I., Horesh, A., Hancock, Paul, Valenti, S., Bradley Cenko, S., Kulkarni, S., Gal-Yam, A., Gorbikov, E., Ofek, E., Sand, D., Yaron, O., Graham, M., Silverman, J., Craig Wheeler, J., Marion, G., Walker, E., Mazzali, P., Howell, D., Li, K., Kong, A., Bloom, J., Nugent, P., Surace, J., Masci, F., Carpenter, J., Degenaar, N., Gelino, C.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd. 2013
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Online Access:http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/775/1/L7/pdf/2041-8205_775_1_L7.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/12333
Description
Summary:The intermediate Palomar Transient Factory reports our discovery of a young supernova, iPTF13bvn, in the nearby galaxy, NGC 5806 (22.5 Mpc). Our spectral sequence in the optical and infrared suggests a Type Ib classification.We identify a blue progenitor candidate in deep pre-explosion imaging within a 2s error circle of 80 mas (8.7 pc). The candidate has an MB luminosity of -5.52 ± 0.39 mag and a B-I color of 0.25 ± 0.25 mag. If confirmed by future observations, this would be the first direct detection for a progenitor of a Type Ib. Fitting a power law to the early light curve, we find an extrapolated explosion date around 0.6 days before our first detection. We see no evidence of shock cooling. The pre-explosion detection limits constrain the radius of the progenitor to be smallerthan a few solar radii. iPTF13bvn is also detected in centimeter and millimeter wavelengths. Fitting a synchrotron self-absorption model to our radio data, we find a mass-loading parameter of 1.3×1012 g cm-1. Assuming a wind velocity of 103 km s-1, we derive a progenitor mass-loss rate of 3 × 10-5M yr-1. Our observations, taken as awhole, are consistent with a Wolf–Rayet progenitor of the supernova iPTF13bvn.