The Red Supergiant Progenitor of the Type II Supernova 2024abfl

Abstract Linkage between core-collapse supernovae and their progenitors is not fully understood and ongoing effort of searching and identifying the progenitors is needed. SN 2024abfl is a recent Type II supernova that exploded in the nearby star-bursting galaxy NGC 2146, which is also the host galaxy of SN 2018zd. From archival Hubble Space Telescope data, we have found a red source (m F814W ∼ 25) near the location (angular distance ≤0 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mover> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mtext>″</mml:mtext> </mml:mrow> </mml:mover> </mml:math> 2) of SN 2024abfl before its explosion. With F814W and F606W photometry, we found that the properties of this source matched a typical red supergiant (RSG) moderately reddened by interstellar dust at the distance of the host galaxy. We conclude that the SN 2024abfl had an RSG progenitor with initial mass of 9 –12 M ⊙ .