Discovery of a Variable Yellow Supergiant Progenitor for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo

Zexi Niu; Ning-Chen Sun; Justyn R. Maund; Zhen Guo; Wenxiong Li; Meng Sun; Jifeng Liu

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ade4cd

Discovery of a Variable Yellow Supergiant Progenitor for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo

Zexi Niu, Ning-Chen Sun, Justyn R. Maund, Zhen Guo, Wenxiong Li, Meng Sun, Jifeng Liu

School of Physics, Engineering & Computer Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We report the discovery of a progenitor candidate for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo using multiepoch pre-explosion images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey. The progenitor exhibited a ∼0.7 mag decline in F814W from 2001 to 2013, followed by significant brightening and color fluctuations in the g, r, and z bands. This is the first time that substantial photometric variability has been found for the progenitor of a SN IIb. We suggest that the variability is caused by intrinsic changes in the progenitor star instead of varying obscuration by circumstellar dust. Our results show that the progenitor of SN 2024abfo was likely a yellow supergiant star with an initial mass of 12–18 M⊙ for circumstellar reddening of E(B − V)CSM < 0.2 mag. Our study underscores the critical role of multiepoch imaging surveys in revealing the final stages of core-collapse supernovae progenitors.

Original language	English
Article number	L10
Number of pages	10
Journal	Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	987
Issue number	1
Early online date	26 Jun 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ade4cd
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2025

Keywords

Type II supernovae
Variable stars

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© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 772 KBLicence: CC BY

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title = "Discovery of a Variable Yellow Supergiant Progenitor for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo",

abstract = "We report the discovery of a progenitor candidate for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo using multiepoch pre-explosion images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey. The progenitor exhibited a ∼0.7 mag decline in F814W from 2001 to 2013, followed by significant brightening and color fluctuations in the g, r, and z bands. This is the first time that substantial photometric variability has been found for the progenitor of a SN IIb. We suggest that the variability is caused by intrinsic changes in the progenitor star instead of varying obscuration by circumstellar dust. Our results show that the progenitor of SN 2024abfo was likely a yellow supergiant star with an initial mass of 12–18 M⊙ for circumstellar reddening of E(B − V)CSM < 0.2 mag. Our study underscores the critical role of multiepoch imaging surveys in revealing the final stages of core-collapse supernovae progenitors.",

keywords = "Type II supernovae, Variable stars",

author = "Zexi Niu and Ning-Chen Sun and Maund, {Justyn R.} and Zhen Guo and Wenxiong Li and Meng Sun and Jifeng Liu",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",

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doi = "10.3847/2041-8213/ade4cd",

language = "English",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Discovery of a Variable Yellow Supergiant Progenitor for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo

AU - Niu, Zexi

AU - Sun, Ning-Chen

AU - Maund, Justyn R.

AU - Guo, Zhen

AU - Li, Wenxiong

AU - Sun, Meng

AU - Liu, Jifeng

N1 - © 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

PY - 2025/7/1

Y1 - 2025/7/1

N2 - We report the discovery of a progenitor candidate for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo using multiepoch pre-explosion images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey. The progenitor exhibited a ∼0.7 mag decline in F814W from 2001 to 2013, followed by significant brightening and color fluctuations in the g, r, and z bands. This is the first time that substantial photometric variability has been found for the progenitor of a SN IIb. We suggest that the variability is caused by intrinsic changes in the progenitor star instead of varying obscuration by circumstellar dust. Our results show that the progenitor of SN 2024abfo was likely a yellow supergiant star with an initial mass of 12–18 M⊙ for circumstellar reddening of E(B − V)CSM < 0.2 mag. Our study underscores the critical role of multiepoch imaging surveys in revealing the final stages of core-collapse supernovae progenitors.

AB - We report the discovery of a progenitor candidate for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo using multiepoch pre-explosion images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey. The progenitor exhibited a ∼0.7 mag decline in F814W from 2001 to 2013, followed by significant brightening and color fluctuations in the g, r, and z bands. This is the first time that substantial photometric variability has been found for the progenitor of a SN IIb. We suggest that the variability is caused by intrinsic changes in the progenitor star instead of varying obscuration by circumstellar dust. Our results show that the progenitor of SN 2024abfo was likely a yellow supergiant star with an initial mass of 12–18 M⊙ for circumstellar reddening of E(B − V)CSM < 0.2 mag. Our study underscores the critical role of multiepoch imaging surveys in revealing the final stages of core-collapse supernovae progenitors.

KW - Type II supernovae

KW - Variable stars

U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ade4cd

DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ade4cd

M3 - Article

SN - 2041-8205

VL - 987

JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters

JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters

IS - 1

M1 - L10

ER -

Discovery of a Variable Yellow Supergiant Progenitor for the Type IIb SN 2024abfo

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Keywords

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