The Progenitor Star of SN 2023ixf: A Massive Red Supergiant with Enhanced, Episodic Pre-Supernova Mass Loss

Understand

We identify the progenitor star of SN 2023ixf in the nearby galaxy Messier 101 using Keck/NIRC2 adaptive optics imaging and pre-explosion HST/ACS images.

• The supernova position, localized with diffraction-spike pattern and high precision relative astrometry, unambiguously coincides with a single progenitor candidate of m_F814W=24.96(-0.04)(+0.05).
• Forced photometry further recovers 2-sigma detections in the F673N and F675W bands and imposes robust flux limits on the bluer bands.
• Given the reported infrared excess and semi-regular variability of the progenitor, we fit a time-dependent spectral energy distribution (SED) model of a dusty red supergiant (RSG) to a combined dataset of HST photometry, as well as ground-based near-infrared and Spitzer/IRAC [3.6], [4.5] photometry from the literature.