2014MNRAS.440.1917D

Type IIP supernovae (SNe) are expected to arise from red supergiant stars (RSGs). These stars have observed mass-loss rates that span more than two orders of magnitude, from less than 10^-6 M_☉/yr to almost 10^-4 M_☉/yr. Thermal bremsstrahlung X-ray emission from at least some IIPs should reflect the larger end of the high mass-loss rates. Strangely, no IIP SNe are seen where the X-ray luminosity is large enough to suggest mass-loss rates greater than about 10^-5 M_☉/yr. We investigate if this could be due to absorption of the X-ray emission. After carefully studying all the various aspects, we conclude that absorption would not be large enough to prevent us from having detected X-ray emission from high mass-loss rate IIPs. This leads us to the conclusion that there may be an upper limit of ∼ 10^-5 M_☉/yr to the mass-loss rate of Type IIP progenitors, and therefore to the luminosity of RSGs that explode to form Type IIPs. This in turn suggests an upper limit of \lesssim 19 M_☉ for the progenitor mass of a Type IIP SN. This limit is close to that obtained by direct detection of IIP progenitors, as well as that suggested by recent stellar evolution calculations. Although the statistics need to be improved, many current indicators support the notion that RSGs above ∼ 19 M_☉ do not explode to form Type IIP SNe.