Exclusion of a luminous red giant as a companion star to the progenitor of supernova SN 2011fe
Kulkarni, S. R.; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Cenko, S. Bradley; Law, Nicholas M.; Li, Weidong; Shih, Hsin-Yi; Kasliwal, Mansi M.; Miller, Adam A.; Nugent, Peter E.; Stockton, Alan; Shen, Ken J.; Shara, Michael M.; Ganeshalingam, Mohan; Silverman, Jeffrey M.; Ofek, Eran O.; Bildsten, Lars; Quimby, Robert M.; Bloom, Joshua S.; Howell, D. Andrew; Jha, Saurabh W.; McCully, Curtis; Podsiadlowski, Philipp; Poznanski, Dovi; Patel, Brandon; Richards, Joseph W.; Butler, Nathaniel R.; Sullivan, Mark; Maguire, Kate; Bibby, Joanne
United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Japan
Abstract
Type Ia supernovae are thought to result from a thermonuclear explosion of an accreting white dwarf in a binary system, but little is known of the precise nature of the companion star and the physical properties of the progenitor system. There are two classes of models: double-degenerate (involving two white dwarfs in a close binary system) and single-degenerate models. In the latter, the primary white dwarf accretes material from a secondary companion until conditions are such that carbon ignites, at a mass of 1.38 times the mass of the Sun. The type Ia supernova SN 2011fe was recently detected in a nearby galaxy. Here we report an analysis of archival images of the location of SN 2011fe. The luminosity of the progenitor system (especially the companion star) is 10-100 times fainter than previous limits on other type Ia supernova progenitor systems, allowing us to rule out luminous red giants and almost all helium stars as the mass-donating companion to the exploding white dwarf.