Properties of the circumstellar matter around the pair-instability supernova candidate SN 2018ibb revealed by its light curve

SN 2018ibb is one of the best pair-instability supernova (PISN) candidates identified to date. It, however, showed unexpected blue flux excess in late-phase spectra, likely originating from the interaction between supernova (SN) ejecta and dense circumstellar matter (CSM). We develop synthetic light-curve models of PISNe interacting with dense CSM and estimate the CSM properties of SN 2018ibb by comparing the synthetic and observed light curves. We found that the bolometric luminosity evolution of SN 2018ibb from 150 d after the peak can be well reproduced by the interaction with the CSM formed by a mass-loss rate of 0.01 ( v CSM / 1,000 k m s − 1 ) M ⊙ y r − 1 , where v CSM is the CSM velocity. The observed luminosity break at around 300 d from the peak indicates that the CSM interaction ended at this time and the dense CSM radius was 8.5 × 1 0 16 c m . The CSM radius then implies that the mass loss of the progenitor was enhanced for 28 ( v CSM / 1,000 k m s − 1 ) − 1 y r before explosion. We conclude that PISN progenitors may experience short-term mass-loss enhancement within decades before explosion, similar to what is often observed in progenitors of core-collapse SNe.