M.S., M.J.M., J.N., and A.L. acknowledge the support of the National Science Centre, Poland through the SONATA BIS grant 2018/30/E/ST9/00208. M.J.M. acknowledges the support of the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange Bekker grant BPN/BEK/2022/1/00110. L.G. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) 10.13039/501100011033, and the European Social Fund (ESF) ”Investing in your future” under the 2019 Ramón y Cajal program RYC2019-027683-I and the PID2020-115253GA-I00 HOSTFLOWS project, from Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) under the PIE project 20215AT016, and the programme Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M. This work was supported by research grants (VIL16599, VIL54489) from VILLUM FONDEN. EZ acknowledges support from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation under the “3rd Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to Support Post-Doctoral Researchers” (Project No: 7933). O.R. acknowledge the support of the National Science Centre, Poland through the grant 2022/01/4/ST9/00037. This research was funded in whole or in part by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant numbers: 2020/39/D/ST9/03078 and 2021/41/N/ST9/02662). We acknowledge David Alex Kann who passed away before the submission of this manuscript and contributed to the writing of the observing proposal and interpretation of the data. The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant DNRF140. D.W. is co-funded by the European Union (ERC, HEAVYMETAL, 101071865).

Core-collapse supernovae are explosions of massive stars at the end of their evolution. They are responsible for metal production and for halting star formation, having a significant impact on galaxy evolution. The details of these processes depend on the nature of supernova progenitors, but it is unclear if Type Ic supernovae (without hydrogen or helium lines in their spectra) originate from core-collapses of very massive stars (>30 M⊙) or from less massive stars in binary systems. Here we show that Type II (with hydrogen lines) and Ic supernovae are located in environments with similar molecular gas densities, therefore their progenitors have comparable lifetimes and initial masses. This supports a binary interaction for most Type Ic supernova progenitors, which explains the lack of hydrogen and helium lines. This finding can be implemented in sub-grid prescriptions in numerical cosmological simulations to improve the feedback and chemical mixing.

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Unit of Excellence Maria de Maeztu" accreditation (CEX2020-001058-M).

Martín Solar et al.

Peer reviewed