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A shock flash breaking out of a dusty red supergiant

Nature volume 627, pages 754–758 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Shock-breakout emission is light that arises when a shockwave, generated by the core-collapse explosion of a massive star, passes through its outer envelope. Hitherto, the earliest detection of such a signal was at several hours after the explosion1, although a few others had been reported2,3,4,5,6,7. The temporal evolution of early light curves should provide insights into the shock propagation, including explosion asymmetry and environment in the vicinity, but this has been hampered by the lack of multiwavelength observations. Here we report the instant multiband observations of a type II supernova (SN 2023ixf) in the galaxy M101 (at a distance of 6.85 ± 0.15 Mpc; ref. 8), beginning at about 1.4 h after the explosion. The exploding star was a red supergiant with a radius of about 440 solar radii. The light curves evolved rapidly, on timescales of 1−2 h, and appeared unusually fainter and redder than predicted by the models9,10,11 within the first few hours, which we attribute to an optically thick dust shell before it was disrupted by the shockwave. We infer that the breakout and perhaps the distribution of the surrounding dust were not spherically symmetric.

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Fig. 1: Emergence of the first light of SN 2023ixf.
Fig. 2: Optical light curves of SN 2023ixf taken within the first 3 days relative to the estimated first light.
Fig. 3: Temporal evolution of the early brightness and colours of SN 2023ixf.
Fig. 4: Fitting the shock-breakout emission of SN 2023ixf with a multiple-process hybrid model.

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Data availability

Raw images of SN 2023ixf obtained by the 13-cm Newtonian, 10.1-cm refractor and 12-inch Ritchey–Chrétien telescope observed by the authors can be retrieved from the Transient Name Server (https://www.wis-tns.org/). The images of the 0.6-m NEXT in Xingjiang, China, the 10.7-cm refractor in Xinjiang, China, the 15.2-cm refractor in Sola, Norway, the 13-cm refractor in Yunnan, China, the 10-cm refractor in Yunnan, China, and the 15.0-cm refractor in Utah, USA, are exclusive or published for the first time, to our knowledge. All photometric data except those from Liverpool Telescope, Plaskett Telescope and ZTF are original. All reduced light curves used for this work are available at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8434500).

Code availability

The Python package REPROJECT (v.1.2.0) used for stacking images can be obtained from reproject (https://reproject.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html). The PYZOGY and SFFT packages used for image subtraction are available on GitHub (https://github.com/dguevel/PyZOGY and https://github.com/thomasvrussell/sfft, respectively). The AUTOPHOT code used for reducing photometric images is available on GitHub (https://github.com/Astro-Sean/autophot). The program used for aperture photometry of AST3-3 and YAHPT images is SourceExtractor (https://www.astromatic.net/software/sextractor/). The general tool used in this study to solve the World Coordinate System (WCS) is astrometry.net (http://astrometry.net/doc/build.html). The code used to fit the hybrid model is available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8434500).

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Acknowledgements

The work of X.W. is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC grant nos 12288102, 12033003 and 11633002), the Scholar Program of the Beijing Academy of Science and Technology (DZ BS202002) and the New Cornerstone Science Foundation through the XPLORER PRIZE. M.H. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12321003) and the Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent. W. Li acknowledges support from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF grant no. 2752/19), the European Research Council (grant JetNS) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme of the European Union and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC grant nos 12120101003 and 12233008). Y.Y. is a Bengier–Winslow–Robertson Postdoctoral Fellow. Y.Y. appreciates the financial support provided to the supernova group at the University of California, Berkeley, by G. Bengier and C. Bengier, C. Winslow and S. Winslow, S. Robertson and other donors. L.H. acknowledges support from the Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent, the Major Science and Technology Project of Qinghai Province (2019-ZJ-A10) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2022M723372). T.S. appreciates the Major Science and Technology Project of Qinghai Province (2019-ZJ-A10) and the Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent. J. Zhang is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2021YFA1600404), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12173082), the Yunnan Province Foundation (202201AT070069), the Top-Notch Young Talents Program of Yunnan Province, the Light of West China Program provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the International Centre of Supernovae, Yunnan Key Laboratory (grant no. 202302AN360001). D. Xiong acknowledges the support of BOOTES-4 technical staff. Lingzhi Wang is sponsored (in part) by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), through a grant to the CAS South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA) in Santiago, Chile. Jian Chen acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12203105). The AST3-3 team and YAHPT team thank the staff of the Yaoan Observation Station. The operation of the Xingming Observatory is supported by the Education Bureau of Ningbo, China and Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, China. We acknowledge the support of the staff of the Xinglong 80-cm telescope. This work was partially supported by the Open Project Program of the CAS Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, CAS. The SNOVA team is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China for the Intergovernmental Scientific and Technological Innovation Cooperation Project (grant no. 2022YFE0126200) and the High-Level Talent-Heaven Lake Program of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Gaici Li, Maokai Hu, Wenxiong Li, Yi Yang

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Gaici Li, Xiaofeng Wang, Shengyu Yan, Jialian Liu, Jun Mo, Gaobo Xi, Danfeng Xiang, Weili Lin, Fangzhou Guo & Qichun Liu

  2. Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China

    Maokai Hu, Lei Hu, Tianrui Sun & Jian Chen

  3. The School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Wenxiong Li

  4. Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Wenxiong Li & Lingzhi Wang

  5. Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Yi Yang & Keming Zhang

  6. Beijing Planetarium, Beijing Academy of Science and Technology, Beijing, China

    Xiaofeng Wang

  7. McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Lei Hu

  8. Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China

    Jujia Zhang & Dingrong Xiong

  9. Key Laboratory for the Structure and Evolution of Celestial Objects, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China

    Jujia Zhang & Dingrong Xiong

  10. International Centre of Supernovae, Yunnan Key Laboratory, Kunming, China

    Jujia Zhang

  11. National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yiming Mao

  12. Skjeivik Observatory, Strand, Norway

    Henrik Riise

  13. Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China

    Xing Gao & Abdusamatjan Iskandar

  14. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Lifan Wang

  15. School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Abdusamatjan Iskandar

  16. South America Center for Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Lingzhi Wang

  17. Xingming Observatory, Urumqi, China

    Guoyou Sun, Guangyao Cai, Wenjie Zhou, Jingyuan Zhao, Jin Chen, Xin Zheng, Keying Li, Mi Zhang, Shijun Xu & Xiaodong Lyu

  18. Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA-CSIC), Granada, Spain

    Alberto J. Castro-Tirado

  19. Unidad Asociada al CSIC, Departamento de Ingenieria de Sistemas y Automatica, Escuela de Ingenierias, Universidad de Malaga, Malaga, Spain

    Alberto J. Castro-Tirado

  20. G. M. Grechko Nizhny Novgorod Planetarium, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Vasilii Chufarin

  21. Minin University, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Vasilii Chufarin

  22. Ka-Dar/Astroverty, Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia

    Nikolay Potapov & Stanislav Korotkiy

  23. Vedrus Observatory, Azovskaya, Russia

    Ivan Ionov

  24. Crimean Astrophysical Observatory RAS, Nauchnyi, Russia

    Sergey Nazarov

  25. Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Kirill Sokolovsky

  26. Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

    Kirill Sokolovsky

  27. Trevinca Skies, Ourense, Spain

    Norman Hamann

  28. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Eliot Herman

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  1. Gaici Li
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  2. Maokai Hu
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  44. Eliot Herman
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X.W., Y.Y., G.L., M.H. and W. Li drafted the paper. X.W. initiated this study and led the discussions. G.L. and W. Li led the data reduction and analysis. M.H. and Y.Y. led the hybrid model fitting and analysis. S.Y. contributed to the fitting of the early-time light curves. L.H. helped with the AST3 data reduction and preparing the paper; T.S. helped with the YAHPT data reduction; D. Xiong and J. Zhang helped with the BOOTES data reduction; J.L. and J.M. helped with the TNT data reduction; A.I. helped with the SNOVA data reduction. Y.M. obtained the data with the 10.7-cm refractor/ZWO ASI071MC-Cool camera; H.R. obtained the data with the 15.2-cm refractor/ZWO ASI6200MM Pro camera; V.C., N.P., I.I., S.K., S.N. and K.S. obtained the data with the 10.1-cm refractor/QHY600m monochrome CMOS camera; X.G. obtained the data with the 0.6-m reflector/FLI 230-42 camera; Jian Chen obtained the data with YAHPT; T.-R.S. obtained the data with AST3; G.C. obtained the data with the 13-cm refractor/ZWO ASI2600MM Pro; Jin Chen obtained the data with the 10-cm refractor/ZWO ASI2600MM; N.H. obtained the data with the 12-inch Ritchey–Chrétien telescope/ATR3CMOS 26000KPA; E.H. obtained the data with the 15-cm refractor/FLI Proline 10002M. G.X., D. Xiang, Lifan Wang, Lingzhi Wang, W. Lin, F.G. and Q.L. helped with the discussions. K.Z., G.S., W.Z., J. Zhao, X.Z., K.L., M.Z., S.X., X.L. and A.J.C.-T. contributed to the data collection.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaofeng Wang.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Transmission curves of different photometric systems.

Comparison of the transmission curves of the RGB filters with the standard Johnson/Bessell BVRI (a) and Sloan gri filters (b) used in the observations of SN 2023ixf presented in this paper. The transmission curves are normalized to the peak transmission rate for each filter.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Zero-point diagnostic plot generated by AUTOPHOT.

Zero-point measurements before (a) and after (b) a 3σ clipping process. The zero-point value is indicated by a vertical solid line. The error bars indicate 1-σ uncertainties of zeropoints. Panel (c) displays the probability density function of the zero-point distribution with a well-defined peak.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Assessment of the instrument linearity.

Panels (a-c) display a scatter plot that compares the instrumental magnitudes against the catalog magnitudes for the 13-cm Newtonian, 10.7-cm refractor, and 12-inch RC telescopes, respectively. The red lines denote the best-fit linear regressions. Panels (d-f) display the residuals from the regressions. A horizontal red dashed line at zero serves as a reference. The error bars indicate 1-σ uncertainties of instrumental and catalog magnitudes.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Broken power-law fit to the early-time photometry of SN 2023ixf.

(a): Separate fitting to the t < 0.4 day (dark gray region) and 0.4 d < t < 3.0 day (gray region) phases of the early-time light curves of SN 2023ixf with \(f\propto {(t-{t}_{0})}^{n}\) model, with the best fitting curves represented as dotted and dashed lines, respectively. The g- and V-band light curves are shifted vertically for better display. The shifted values are shown in the legends. The error bars indicate 1-σ uncertainties of magnitudes. (b): The residuals relative to the best fittings.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Joint confidence level contours of the parameters inferred from the MCMC-based fitting.

The demonstrated parameters are the time of the first light t0 (in a unit of days after MJD 60,000.0), the radius of the progenitor star Rstar (in a unit of solar radius), and the r-band optical depth of the circumstellar dust measured at t0. Best-fit parameters are marked by horizontal and vertical lines and labeled with their 1σ confidence levels. The inner, middle, and outer contours centered at any intersection of parameter pairs show the 68%, 95%, and 99.7% confidence levels, respectively. The likelihood histograms are scaled to 1 for all the three parameters.

Extended Data Table 1 The best-fit parameters from joint fitting to the grV-band early light curves within ~ 3.0 days after the first detection. The joint fitting assumes the same t0 in the fitting
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Best-fit Parameters of the Ejecta − CSM Interaction Component
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table

Photometric observations of SN 2023ixf before MJD 60100.

Peer Review File

Source data

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Li, G., Hu, M., Li, W. et al. A shock flash breaking out of a dusty red supergiant. Nature 627, 754–758 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06843-6

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