Impact of stellar rotation on type II supernova progenitor masses determined from pre-explosion imaging

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata (IALP), CCT-CONICET-UNLP, Paseo del Bosque S/N, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina
² Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas – UNLP, Paseo del Bosque S/N, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 13 November 2025
Accepted: 18 March 2026

Abstract

The initial masses of red supergiant type II supernova (SN II) progenitors are commonly inferred from pre-explosion imaging by converting the progenitor luminosity into an initial mass estimate using non-rotating stellar evolution models. However, stellar rotation affects the evolution and may influence these estimates. We investigated how the observed distribution of rotational velocities in massive stars influences the progenitor initial masses of SNe II inferred from pre-SN imaging. We compared initial mass estimates obtained from non-rotating models with those derived from rotating models, in which the initial rotational velocities of the stellar models are sampled from the observed distribution. We analysed the inferred progenitor initial masses by (i) comparing the results for each SN individually, (ii) examining the overall probability density function, (iii) constructing the cumulative distribution function, and (iv) determining the upper initial-mass boundary. In all cases, the distributions obtained from rotating models are slightly shifted towards lower masses, although the differences remain smaller than the typical uncertainties. When using the observed distribution of initial rotational velocities for massive stars, we infer an upper initial-mass limit for SN II progenitors of 20.4^+2.3_−1.9 M_⊙. Taken together, these analyses demonstrate that stellar rotation has only a modest impact on progenitor mass estimates from pre-SN imaging within the current observational and model uncertainties when the observed distribution of initial rotational velocities is taken into account. Therefore, adopting this distribution leads to small differences compared to non-rotating models.