Abstract
The apparent tension between the luminosity functions of red supergiant (RSG) stars and of RSG progenitors of Type II supernovae (SNe) is often referred to as the RSG problem and it motivated some to suggest that many RSGs end their life without an SN explosion. However, the luminosity functions of RSG SN progenitors presented so far were biased to high luminosities, because the sensitivity of the search was not considered. Here, we use limiting magnitudes to calculate a bias-corrected RSG progenitor luminosity function. We find that only (36 ± 11)% of all RSG progenitors are brighter than a bolometric magnitude of −7 mag, a significantly smaller fraction than (56 ± 5)% quoted by Davies & Beasor. The larger uncertainty is due to the relatively small progenitor sample, while uncertainties on measured quantities such as magnitudes, bolometric corrections, extinction, or SN distances, only have a minor impact, as long as they fluctuate randomly for different objects in the sample. The bias-corrected luminosity functions of RSG SN progenitors and Type M supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud are consistent with each other, as also found by Davies & Beasor for the uncorrected luminosity function. The RSG progenitor luminosity function, hence, does not imply the existence of failed SNe. The presented statistical method is not limited to progenitor searches, but applies to any situation in which a measurement is done for a sample of detected objects, but the probed quantity or property can only be determined for part of the sample.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | L27 |
| Journal | Astrophysical Journal Letters |
| Volume | 964 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2024 |
Bibliographical note
We would like to thank Morgan Fraser, Emma Beasor, Jonathan Mushkin, and Doron Kushnir for helpful discussion, and Barak Zackay for comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to the organizers of the MIAPbP workshop on interacting supernovae. Moreover, we would like to thank the referee for the constructive and helpful feedback.N.L.S. is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) via the Walter Benjamin program—461903330. This research was supported by the Munich Institute for Astro-, Particle and BioPhysics (MIAPbP), which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Germany's Excellence Strategy—EXC-2094—390783311.
E.O.O. is grateful for the support of grants from the Benozio center, Willner Family Leadership Institute, Ilan Gluzman (Secaucus NJ), Madame Olga Klein—Astrachan, Minerva foundation, Israel Science Foundation, NSF, Israel Ministry of Science, Yeda-Sela, and Weizmann-MIT.
This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology.
A.G.-Y.'s research is supported by the EU via ERC grant No. 725161, the ISF GW excellence center, an IMOS space infrastructure grant and a GIF grant, as well as the André Deloro Institute for Advanced Research in Space and Optics, The Helen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science, the Schwartz/Reisman Collaborative Science Program, and the Norman E Alexander Family M Foundation ULTRASAT Data Center Fund, Minerva and Yeda-Sela; A.G.Y. is the incumbent of the The Arlyn Imberman Professorial Chair.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science