The complex circumstellar environment of supernova 2023ixf

E A Zimmerman; I Irani; P Chen; A Gal-Yam; S Schulze; D A Perley; J Sollerman; A V Filippenko; T Shenar; O Yaron; S Shahaf; R J Bruch; E O Ofek; A De Cia; T G Brink; Y Yang; S S Vasylyev; S Ben Ami; M Aubert; A Badash; J S Bloom; P J Brown; K De; G Dimitriadis; C Fransson; C Fremling; K Hinds; A Horesh; J P Johansson; M M Kasliwal; S R Kulkarni; D Kushnir; C Martin; M Matuzewski; R C McGurk; A A Miller; J Morag; J D Neil; P E Nugent; R S Post; N Z Prusinski; Y Qin; A Raichoor; R Riddle; M Rowe; B Rusholme; I Sfaradi; K M Sjoberg; M Soumagnac; R D Stein; N L Strotjohann; J H Terwel; T Wasserman; J Wise; A Wold; L Yan; K Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07116-6

The complex circumstellar environment of supernova 2023ixf

Nature. 2024 Mar;627(8005):759-762. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07116-6. Epub 2024 Mar 27.

Authors

E A Zimmerman^#¹, I Irani^#², P Chen², A Gal-Yam², S Schulze³, D A Perley⁴, J Sollerman⁵, A V Filippenko⁶, T Shenar⁷, O Yaron², S Shahaf², R J Bruch^{2

8}, E O Ofek², A De Cia^{9

10}, T G Brink⁶, Y Yang^{6

11}, S S Vasylyev⁶, S Ben Ami², M Aubert¹², A Badash², J S Bloom⁶, P J Brown¹³, K De¹⁴, G Dimitriadis¹⁵, C Fransson⁵, C Fremling^{16

17}, K Hinds⁴, A Horesh¹⁸, J P Johansson³, M M Kasliwal¹⁷, S R Kulkarni¹⁷, D Kushnir², C Martin¹⁹, M Matuzewski¹⁹, R C McGurk²⁰, A A Miller^{21

22}, J Morag², J D Neil¹⁷, P E Nugent^{6

23}, R S Post²⁴, N Z Prusinski¹⁹, Y Qin¹⁷, A Raichoor⁶, R Riddle¹⁶, M Rowe¹³, B Rusholme²⁵, I Sfaradi¹⁸, K M Sjoberg^{26

27}, M Soumagnac^{23

28}, R D Stein¹⁷, N L Strotjohann², J H Terwel^{15

27}, T Wasserman², J Wise⁴, A Wold²⁵, L Yan¹⁶, K Zhang^{6

29}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. erezimm@gmail.com.
² Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
³ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.
⁵ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁷ Departamento de Astrofísica, Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Madrid, Spain.
⁸ School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
⁹ European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany.
¹⁰ Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, Versoix, Switzerland.
¹¹ Physics Department and Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics (THCA), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
¹² Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
¹³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
¹⁴ MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁵ School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
¹⁶ Caltech Optical Observatories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
¹⁷ Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
¹⁸ The Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
¹⁹ Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
²⁰ W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, HI, USA.
²¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
²² Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
²³ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
²⁴ Post Observatory, Lexington, MA, USA.
²⁵ IPAC, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
²⁶ Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²⁷ Isaac Newton Group (ING), Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain.
²⁸ Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
²⁹ Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38538936
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07116-6

Abstract

The early evolution of a supernova (SN) can reveal information about the environment and the progenitor star. When a star explodes in vacuum, the first photons to escape from its surface appear as a brief, hours-long shock-breakout flare^1,2, followed by a cooling phase of emission. However, for stars exploding within a distribution of dense, optically thick circumstellar material (CSM), the first photons escape from the material beyond the stellar edge and the duration of the initial flare can extend to several days, during which the escaping emission indicates photospheric heating³. Early serendipitous observations^2,4 that lacked ultraviolet (UV) data were unable to determine whether the early emission is heating or cooling and hence the nature of the early explosion event. Here we report UV spectra of the nearby SN 2023ixf in the galaxy Messier 101 (M101). Using the UV data as well as a comprehensive set of further multiwavelength observations, we temporally resolve the emergence of the explosion shock from a thick medium heated by the SN emission. We derive a reliable bolometric light curve that indicates that the shock breaks out from a dense layer with a radius substantially larger than typical supergiants.