A binary merger product as the direct progenitor of a Type II-P supernova
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866909989759614976 |
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| author | Niu, Zexi Sun, Ning-Chen Zapartas, Emmanouil Souropanis, Dimitris Cui, Yingzhen Maund, Justyn R. Andrews, JeffJ. Briel, Max M. Fraser, Morgan Gossage, Seth Kruckow, Matthias U. Liotine, Camille Liu, Zhengwei Podsiadlowski, Philipp Srivastava, Philipp M. Teng, Elizabeth Wang, Xiaofeng Yang, Yi Liu, Jifeng |
| author_facet | Niu, Zexi Sun, Ning-Chen Zapartas, Emmanouil Souropanis, Dimitris Cui, Yingzhen Maund, Justyn R. Andrews, JeffJ. Briel, Max M. Fraser, Morgan Gossage, Seth Kruckow, Matthias U. Liotine, Camille Liu, Zhengwei Podsiadlowski, Philipp Srivastava, Philipp M. Teng, Elizabeth Wang, Xiaofeng Yang, Yi Liu, Jifeng |
| contents | Type II-P supernovae (SNe II-P) are the most common class of core-collapse SNe in the local Universe and play critical roles in many aspects of astrophysics. Since decades ago theorists have predicted that SNe II-P may originate not only from single stars but also from interacting binaries. While ~20 SNII-P progenitors have been directly detected on pre-explosion images, observational evidence still remains scarce for this speculated binary progenitor channel. In this work, we report the discovery of a red supergiant progenitor for the Type II-P SN 2018gj. While the progenitor resembles those of other SNe II-P in terms of effective temperature and luminosity, it is located in a very old environment and SN 2018gj has an abnormally short plateau in the light curve. With state-of-the-art binary evolution simulations, we find these characteristics can only be explained if the progenitor of SN 2018gj is the merger product of a close binary system, which developed a different interior structure and evolved over a longer timescale compared with single-star evolution. This work provides the first compelling evidence for the long-sought binary progenitor channel toward SNe II-P, and our methodology serves as an innovative and pragmatic tool to motivate further investigations into this previously hidden population of SNe II-P from binaries. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_06577 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A binary merger product as the direct progenitor of a Type II-P supernova Niu, Zexi Sun, Ning-Chen Zapartas, Emmanouil Souropanis, Dimitris Cui, Yingzhen Maund, Justyn R. Andrews, JeffJ. Briel, Max M. Fraser, Morgan Gossage, Seth Kruckow, Matthias U. Liotine, Camille Liu, Zhengwei Podsiadlowski, Philipp Srivastava, Philipp M. Teng, Elizabeth Wang, Xiaofeng Yang, Yi Liu, Jifeng High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Type II-P supernovae (SNe II-P) are the most common class of core-collapse SNe in the local Universe and play critical roles in many aspects of astrophysics. Since decades ago theorists have predicted that SNe II-P may originate not only from single stars but also from interacting binaries. While ~20 SNII-P progenitors have been directly detected on pre-explosion images, observational evidence still remains scarce for this speculated binary progenitor channel. In this work, we report the discovery of a red supergiant progenitor for the Type II-P SN 2018gj. While the progenitor resembles those of other SNe II-P in terms of effective temperature and luminosity, it is located in a very old environment and SN 2018gj has an abnormally short plateau in the light curve. With state-of-the-art binary evolution simulations, we find these characteristics can only be explained if the progenitor of SN 2018gj is the merger product of a close binary system, which developed a different interior structure and evolved over a longer timescale compared with single-star evolution. This work provides the first compelling evidence for the long-sought binary progenitor channel toward SNe II-P, and our methodology serves as an innovative and pragmatic tool to motivate further investigations into this previously hidden population of SNe II-P from binaries. |
| title | A binary merger product as the direct progenitor of a Type II-P supernova |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06577 |