A Survey About Nothing: Monitoring a Million Supergiants for Failed Supernovae

By C. Kochanek, J. Beacom, Matthew D. Kistler, J. Prieto, Krzysztof Zbigniew Stanek, T. Thompson, H. Yüksel. 2008

229 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Extragalactic transient searches have historically been limited to looking for the appearance of new sources such as supernovae. It is now possible to carry out a new kind of survey that will do the opposite, that is, search for the disappearance of massive stars. This will entail the systematic observation of galaxies within a distance of 10 Mpc in order to watch ~106 supergiants. Reaching this critical number ensures that something will occur yearly, since these massive stars must end their lives with a core collapse within ~106 yr. Using deep imaging and image subtraction, it is possible to determine the fates of these stars, whether they end with a bang (supernova) or a whimper (fall out of sight). Such a survey would place completely new limits on the total rate of all core collapses, which is critical for determining the validity of supernova models. It would also determine the properties of supernova progenitors, better characterize poorly understood optical transients (such as η Carina-like mass ejections), find and characterize large numbers of Cepheids, luminous blue variables, and eclipsing binaries, and allow the discovery of any new phenomena that inhabit this relatively unexplored parameter space.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0630c986617979ace45927abded83c9e542862c7

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Citations in the corpus

THE COSMIC CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA RATE DOES NOT MATCH THE MASSIVE-STAR FORMATION RATE (2011, background): “Another interesting possibility is to observe thedisappearanceof massive stars as opposed to theappearanceof their explosions, which will reveal the dark collapse rate (Kochanek et al. 2008).”
The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: confirmation of a disappearing star (2016, background): “We present new late-time HST, SST, and LBT observations of the failed supernova candidate found by Gerke et al. (2015).”
Delay-time distribution of core-collapse supernovae with late events resulting from binary interaction (2017, background): “This possibly leads to fainter explosions (e.g., O’Connor & Ott 2011; Ugliano et al. 2012; Nadezhin 1980; Lovegrove & Woosley 2013; Piro 2013), or even the simple disappearance of a star without any electromagnetic signature (e.g., Kochanek et al. 2008).”
Nearby supernova rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search - IV. A recovery method for the delay-time distribution (2010, background): “Furthermore, in principle, a sizable fraction of highmass stars could collapse directly to a black hole, with only a weak or null SN explosion accompanying the collapse (Kochanek et al. 2008).”
VERY LOW ENERGY SUPERNOVAE FROM NEUTRINO MASS LOSS (2013, background): “If the outer layers of the star do not have sufficient angular momentum to form a disk when they reach the black hole, the entire star will disappear without producing a transient - the unnova case as defined by Kochanek et al. (2008).”
OBSERVING THE NEXT GALACTIC SUPERNOVA (2013, background): “Identifying Failed SNe The prospects of identifying a star dying without a dramatic SN explosion are challenging but feasible in external galaxies (Kochanek et al. 2008).”
THE LANDSCAPE OF THE NEUTRINO MECHANISM OF CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE: NEUTRON STAR AND BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTIONS, EXPLOSION ENERGIES, AND NICKEL YIELDS (2014, background): “For such cases, a classical supernova explosion would not occurr and the possible observable transient would be much weaker and fainter (Nadezhin 1980; Kochanek et al. 2008; Lovegrove & Woosley 2013; Piro 2013).”
Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae (2009, background): “An interesting area for future work would be a survey for quietly disappearing massive stars as suggested by Kochanek et al. (2008).”
What can be learned from a future supernova neutrino detection (2017, background): “[71] C. S. Kochanek, J. F. Beacom, M. D. Kistler, J. L. Prieto, K. Z. Stanek, T. A. Thompson, and H. Yüksel, “A Survey About Nothing: Monitoring a Million Supergiants for Failed Supernovae,” Astrophys.”
Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars (2015, background): “However, the statistical significance of the number of non-detections does provide a constraint on the mass and luminosity range of the progenitor population as discussed in Smartt et al. (2009) and in Kochanek et al. (2008).”
BLACK HOLE FORMATION IN FAILING CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “Itis uch “unnovae” (Kochanek et al. 2008), failing CCSNe, that are the topic of this paper.”
Discovery of the Dust-Enshrouded Progenitor of SN 2008S with Spitzer (2008, background): “Moving forward, several groups are obtaining the data required to more fully characterize the progenitors of future nearby SNe (e.g., Kochanek et al. 2008).”
Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume II: DUNE Physics (2020, background): “Furthermore, some core collapse events may not yield bright electromagnetic fireworks, in which case directional information may help in location of a dim supernova or even a “disappeared” progenitor [260].”
A PANCHROMATIC VIEW OF THE RESTLESS SN 2009ip REVEALS THE EXPLOSIVE EJECTION OF A MASSIVE STAR ENVELOPE (2013, result): “However, massive progenitor stars have proven to be more elusive (e.g. Kochanek et al. 2008): SN 2005gl constitutes the first direct evidence for a massive (M > 50M ) and H rich star to explode as a corecollapse SN, contrary to theoretical expectations (Gal-Yam et al. 2007; Gal-Yam et al. 2009).”