Pre-supernova outbursts via wave heating in massive stars – I. Red supergiants

Early observations of supernovae (SNe) indicate that enhanced mass-loss and pre-SN outbursts may occur in progenitors of many types of SNe. We investigate the role of energy transport via waves driven by vigorous convection during late-stage nuclear burning of otherwise typical 15 M_⊙ red supergiant SN progenitors. Using MESA stellar evolution models including 1D hydrodynamics, we find that waves carry ∼10^7 L_⊙ of power from the core to the envelope during core neon/oxygen burning in the final years before core collapse. The waves damp via shocks and radiative diffusion at the base of the hydrogen envelope, which heats up fast enough to launch a pressure wave into the overlying envelope that steepens into a weak shock near the stellar surface, causing a mild stellar outburst and ejecting a small (≲1 M_⊙) amount of mass at low speed (≲50 km s^(−1)) roughly one year before the SN. The wave heating inflates the stellar envelope but does not completely unbind it, producing a non-hydrostatic pre-SN envelope density structure different from prior expectations. In our models, wave heating is unlikely to lead to luminous Type IIn SNe, but it may contribute to flash-ionized SNe and some of the diversity seen in II-P/II-L SNe.