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Relic proto-stellar disks and the origin of luminous circumstellar interaction in core collapse supernovae

A small fraction of core collapse supernovae (SNe) show evidence that the outgoing blast wave has encountered a substantial mass ~ 1-10 M_sun of circumstellar matter (CSM) at radii ~100-1000 AU, much more than can nominally be explained by pre-explosion stellar winds. In extreme cases this interaction may power the most luminous, optically-energetic SNe yet discovered. Interpretations for the origin of the CSM have thus far centered on explosive eruptions from the star just ~ years to decades prior to the core collapse. Here we consider an alternative possibility that the inferred CSM is a relic disk left over from stellar birth. We investigate this hypothesis by calculating the evolution of proto-stellar disks around massive stars following their early embedded phase using a self-similar accretion model. We identify an initial gravitationally-unstable ("gravito-turbulent") phase, followed by a much longer period of irradiation-supported accretion during which less effective non-gravitational forms of angular momentum transport dominate. Although external influences, such as the presence of a wide binary companion, may preclude disk survival in many systems, we find that massive (~1-10 M_sun) disks can preferentially survive around the most massive stars. Reasons for this perhaps counterintuitive include (1) the shorter stellar lifetimes and (2) large photo-evaporation radii (~ 1000 AU) of very massive stars; (3) suppression of the magneto-rotational instability due to the shielding from external sources of ionization; and (4) relative invulnerability of massive disks to lower mass stellar collisions and luminous blue variable eruptions. Because very luminous SNe are rare, testing the relic disk model requires constraining the presence of long-lived disks around a small fraction of very massive stars.