2005/06/30 by Justyn R. Maund, Stephen J. Smartt, Stephen Smartt +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High mass #High resolution #Luminosity #Progenitor #Star (game theory) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supernova #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/491620
published as Astrophys.J.630:L33-L36,2005 · ApJL accepted - 12 pages, 2 figures -minor changes due to referee's comments
arxiv created 2005/08/02 · openalex publication_date 2005/08/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report on our attempts to locate the progenitor of the Type Ic supernova SN 2004gt in NGC 4038. We use high-resolution HST ACS images of SN 2004gt and have compared them with deep pre-explosion HST WFPC2 F336W, F439W, F555W, and F814W images. We identify the SN location on the pre-explosion frames with an accuracy of 5 mas. We show that the progenitor is below the detection thresholds of all the pre-explosion images. These detection limits are used to place luminosity and mass limits on the progenitor. The progenitor of SN 2004gt seems to be restricted to a low-luminosity high-temperature star, either a single WC star with an initial mass of >40 M ☉ or a low-mass star in a binary. The pre-explosion data cannot distinguish between the two scenarios.