Constraining the progenitor of a Type IIP SN 2023zcu via detailed photometric and spectral analysis.

In this work, we present a detailed photometric and spectroscopic analysis of the Type IIP supernova, SN 2023zcu, which exploded in the galaxy NGC 2139 (redshift, z = 0.006). SN 2023zcu exhibits a well-sampled light curve covering the rise, plateau, and nebular phases. It has an optical thick phase of 105.08±0.11 days with a high magnitude drop of 3.71±0.03 mag in the V-band during the transition between the plateau and the nebular phases. The spectral evolution of the SN is also well sampled, allowing the identification of the important spectral features like the P-Cygni profile of Hα line, which is one of the main characteristic signatures of Type IIP along with metal lines (Fe II, Ca II NIR triplet, etc.) indicating the formation of metals during the explosion. We modelled the spectra using the radiative transfer code, TARDIS, to estimate the photospheric temperature and velocity, along with the distance estimation from the tailored EPM fitting based on the TARDIS modelling. The velocity of SN 2023zcu was found to be higher than the typical Type IIP SNe. The radioactive tail phase of the light curve was used to quantify the synthesised Ni^(56) mass (0.0247± 0.0001 M☉). Semi-analytical and hydrodynamical modelling of the bolometric light curve suggests the progenitor exploded with an energy of 1.3±0.3 x 10^(51) ergs and an initial mass of 9.5±0.7 M☉ which lies at the lower end of the mass range typically observed for normal Type IIP SNe.