Blast From the Past: Constraining Progenitor Models of SN 1972E

Abstract

We present a novel technique to study Type Ia supernovae by constraining surviving companions of historical extragalactic SN by combining archival photographic plates and Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We demonstrate this technique for Supernova 1972E, the nearest known SN Ia in over 125 years. Some models of Type Ia supernovae describe a white dwarf with a non-degenerate companion that donates enough mass to trigger thermonuclear detonation. Hydrodynamic simulations and stellar evolution models show that these donor stars survive the explosion, and show increased luminosity for at least a thousand years. Thus, late-time observations of the exact location of a supernova after its ejecta have faded can constrain the presence of a surviving donor star and progenitor models. We find the explosion site of SN 1972E by analyzing 17 digitized photographic plates taken with the European Southern Observatory 1m Schmidt and 1 plate taken with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 1.5m telescope from 1972-1974. Using the \textit{Gaia} eDR3 catalog to determine Supernova 1972E's equatorial coordinates yields: $\alpha$ = 13$^h$ 39$^m$ 52.708$^s$ $\pm$ 0.004$^s$ and $\delta$ = $-$31\degree 40' 8\farcs97 $\pm$ 0\farcs04 (ICRS). In 2005, HST/ACS imaged NGC 5253, the host galaxy of SN 1972E, with the $F435W$, $F555W$, and $F814W$ filters covering the explosion site. The nearest source detected is offset by 3.0 times our positional precision, and is inconsistent with the colors expected of a surviving donor star. Thus, the 2005 HST observation rules out all Helium-star companion models, and the most luminous main-sequence companion model currently in the literature. The remaining main-sequence companion models could be tested with deeper HST imaging.