Pastorello A, Smartt S J, Mattila S, Eldridge J J, Young D, Itagaki K, Yamaoka H, Navasardyan H, Valenti S, Patat F, Agnoletto I, Augusteijn T, Benetti S, Cappellaro E, Boles T, Bonnet-Bidaud J-M, Botticella M T, Bufano F, Cao C, Deng J, Dennefeld M, Elias-Rosa N, Harutyunyan A, Keenan F P, Iijima T, Lorenzi V, Mazzali P A, Meng X, Nakano S, Nielsen T B, Smoker J V, Stanishev V, Turatto M, Xu D, Zampieri L
Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK.
Nature. 2007 Jun 14;447(7146):829-32. doi: 10.1038/nature05825.
The death of massive stars produces a variety of supernovae, which are linked to the structure of the exploding stars. The detection of several precursor stars of type II supernovae has been reported (see, for example, ref. 3), but we do not yet have direct information on the progenitors of the hydrogen-deficient type Ib and Ic supernovae. Here we report that the peculiar type Ib supernova SN 2006jc is spatially coincident with a bright optical transient that occurred in 2004. Spectroscopic and photometric monitoring of the supernova leads us to suggest that the progenitor was a carbon-oxygen Wolf-Rayet star embedded within a helium-rich circumstellar medium. There are different possible explanations for this pre-explosion transient. It appears similar to the giant outbursts of luminous blue variable stars (LBVs) of 60-100 solar masses, but the progenitor of SN 2006jc was helium- and hydrogen-deficient (unlike LBVs). An LBV-like outburst of a Wolf-Rayet star could be invoked, but this would be the first observational evidence of such a phenomenon. Alternatively, a massive binary system composed of an LBV that erupted in 2004, and a Wolf-Rayet star exploding as SN 2006jc, could explain the observations.
大质量恒星的死亡会产生多种超新星，这与爆发恒星的结构有关。已有报道发现了几颗II型超新星的前身恒星（例如，参见参考文献3），但我们尚未获得关于贫氢Ib型和Ic型超新星前身星的直接信息。在此我们报告，特殊的Ib型超新星SN 2006jc在空间上与2004年出现的一次明亮光学瞬变源重合。对该超新星的光谱和光度监测使我们认为，其前身星是一颗碳氧沃尔夫-拉叶星，嵌于富含氦的星周介质中。对于这次爆炸前的瞬变源有不同的可能解释。它看起来类似于质量为60至100个太阳质量的蓝特超巨星（LBVs）的巨大爆发，但SN 2006jc的前身星贫氦且贫氢（与蓝特超巨星不同）。可以设想是沃尔夫-拉叶星出现了类似蓝特超巨星的爆发，但这将是此类现象的首个观测证据。或者，一个由2004年爆发的蓝特超巨星和作为SN 2006jc爆发的沃尔夫-拉叶星组成的大质量双星系统可以解释这些观测结果。
