Search for precursor eruptions among Type IIb supernovae

Understand

The progenitor stars of several Type IIb supernovae (SNe) show indications for extended hydrogen envelopes.

• These envelopes might be the outcome of luminous energetic pre-explosion events, so-called precursor eruptions.
• We use the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) pre-explosion observations of a sample of 27 nearby Type IIb SNe to look for such precursors during the final years prior to the SN explosion.
• No precursors are found when combining the observations in 15-day bins, and we calculate the absolute-magnitude-dependent upper limit on the precursor rate.