Strongly decelerated expansion of SN 1979C

We observed SN 1979C in M100 on 4 June 1999, about twenty years after explosion, with a very sensitive four-antenna VLBI array at the wavelength of λ18 cm. The distance to M100 and the expansion velocities are such that the supernova cannot be fully resolved by our Earth-wide array. Model-dependent sizes for the source have been determined and compared with previous results. We conclude that the supernova shock was initially in free expansion for 6 ± 2 yrs and then experienced a very strong deceleration. The onset of deceleration took place a few years before the abrupt trend change in the integrated radio flux density curves. We estimate the shocked swept-up mass to be M_(sw) ~ 1.6 M_⊙, assuming a standard density profile for the CSM. Such a swept-up mass for SN 1979C suggests a mass of the hydrogen-rich envelope ejected at explosion no larger than M_(env) ~ 0.9 M_⊙. If SN 1979C originated in a binary star, the low value of M_(env) suggests that the companion of the progenitor star stripped off most of the hydrogen-rich envelope mass of the presupernova star prior to the explosion.