Upper limits on the luminosity of the progenitor of type Ia supernova SN2014J

M. T. B. Nielsen, M. Gilfanov, A. Bogdan, T. E. Woods, G. Nelemans

Published 2014-02-12Version 1

We analysed archival data of Chandra pre-explosion observations of the position of SN2014J in M82. No X-ray source at this position was detected in the data, and we calculated upper limits on the luminosities of the progenitor. These upper limits allow us to firmly rule out an unobscured supersoft X-ray source progenitor with a photospheric radius comparable to the radius of white dwarf near the Chandrasekhar mass (~1.38 M_sun) and mass accretion rate in the interval where stable nuclear burning can occur. However, due to a relatively large hydrogen column density implied by optical observations of the supernova, we cannot exclude a supersoft source with lower temperatures, kT < 80 eV. We find that the supernova is located in the centre of a large structure of soft diffuse emission, about 200 pc across. The mass, ~3x10^4 M_sun and short cooling time of the gas, tau_cool ~ 8 Myrs, suggest that it is a supernova-inflated super-bubble, associated with the region of recent star formation. If SN2014J is indeed located inside the bubble, it likely belongs to the prompt population of type Ia supernovae, with a delay time as short as ~ 50 Myrs. Finally, we analysed the one existing post-supernova Chandra observation and placed upper limit of ~ (1-2) 10^37 erg/s on the X-ray luminosity of the supernova itself.