Pan-STARRS1 DISCOVERY OF TWO ULTRALUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AT z ≈ 0.9

By L. Chomiuk, Ryan Chornock, A. Soderberg, E. Berger, R. Chevalier, R. Foley, M. Huber, G. Narayan, Armin Rest, S. Gezari and 22 more. 2011

141 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the discovery of two ultraluminous supernovae (SNe) at z ≈ 0.9 with the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey. These SNe, PS1-10ky and PS1-10awh, are among the most luminous SNe ever discovered, comparable to the unusual transients SN 2005ap and SCP 06F6. Like SN 2005ap and SCP 06F6, they show characteristic high luminosities (Mbol ≈ −22.5 mag), blue spectra with a few broad absorption lines, and no evidence for H or He. We have constructed a full multi-color light curve sensitive to the peak of the spectral energy distribution in the rest-frame ultraviolet, and we have obtained time series spectroscopy for these SNe. Given the similarities between the SNe, we combine their light curves to estimate a total radiated energy over the course of explosion of (0.9–1.4) × 1051 erg. We find photospheric velocities of 12,000–19,000 km s−1 with no evidence for deceleration measured across ∼3 rest-frame weeks around light curve peak, consistent with the expansion of an optically thick massive shell of material. We show that, consistent with findings for other ultraluminous SNe in this class, radioactive decay is not sufficient to power PS1-10ky, and we discuss two plausible origins for these events: the initial spin-down of a newborn magnetar in a core-collapse SN, or SN shock breakout from the dense circumstellar wind surrounding a Wolf–Rayet star.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2eec63b793846d37fe8cfe5c9b05e617dde8fdff

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. E. Berger
2. S. Smartt
3. A. Filippenko
4. N. Smith
5. A. Riess
6. Ryan Chornock
7. B. Metzger
8. Stan Woosley

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. S. Smartt
2. E. Berger
3. M. Kromer
4. W. Hillebrandt
5. A. Filippenko
6. R. Kirshner
7. J. C. Wheeler
8. Masaomi Tanaka

Citations in the corpus

• PESSTO: survey description and products from the first data release by the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (2014, methodology): “PS1 has concentrated efforts on higher redshift regimes, covering similar volume to PTF’s imaging survey with its 10 Medium Deep fields, daily cadence, and follow-up on 4m, 6m, and 8m telescopes (e.g. Botticella et al. 2010; Chomiuk et al. 2011; Berger et al. 2012; Gezari et al. 2012).”
• COSMOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS FROM MEASUREMENTS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE DISCOVERED DURING THE FIRST 1.5 yr OF THE Pan-STARRS1 SURVEY (2013, background): “These include supernovae (SN) and other transients of unusual types (Gezari et al. 2010; Botticella et al. 2010; Chomiuk et al. 2011; Narayan et al. 2011; Lee et al. 2012; Gezari et al. 2012; Sanders et al. 2012; Berger et al. 2012; Lunnan et al. 2013; Chornock et al. 2013; Sanders et al. 2013;…”
• PS16dtm: A Tidal Disruption Event in a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy (2017, background): “These include superluminous supernovae (SLSNe; Chomiuk et al. 2011; Quimby et al. 2011; GalYam 2012; Nicholl et al. 2015) with hydrogen (Type II) and without hydrogen (Type I) and tidal disruption events (TDEs; Gezari et al. 2009; van Velzen et al. 2011; Chornock et al. 2014; Komossa 2015), as well…”
• ANALYTICAL LIGHT CURVE MODELS OF SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE: χ2-MINIMIZATION OF PARAMETER FITS (2013, background): “Possible examples of this are SN 2006oz (Leloudas et al. (2012) and the Pan-STARRS discoveries PS1-10ky and PS1-10awh (Chomiuk et al. 2011), PS1-11bam (Berger et al. 2012), PS1-10afx (Chornock et al. 2013) and PS1-10bzj (Lunnan et al. 2013).”
• Wave‐driven mass loss in the last year of stellar evolution: setting the stage for the most luminous core‐collapse supernovae (2012, background): “In several cases, the late-time light curve disfavors one alternative explanation, that the luminosity is powered by unusually large amounts of radioactive Ni and Co (e.g., Miller et al. 2010; Chomiuk et al. 2011).”
• On the diversity of superluminous supernovae: ejected mass as the dominant factor (2015, methodology): “In the Silver sample (with a mean of 〈z〉 = 0.63), we have two more objects from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey – PS110ky at z ∼ 0.9 (Chomiuk et al. 2011) and PS1-10bzj at z ∼ 0.6 (Lunnan et al. 2013) – while most of the others featured in the original Quimby et al. (2011) sample that defined…”
• Rates of superluminous supernovae at z ∼ 0.2 (2013, methodology): “The decay of radioactive 56Ni, the source of a Type Ia explosion’s brilliance, may be involved in certain events (Gal-Yam et al. 2009, but see also Dessart et al. 2012), but for others, it cannot be more than a minor contributor (e.g. Pastorello et al. 2010; Quimby et al. 2011; Chomiuk et al. 2011).”
• Light-curve modelling of superluminous supernova 2006gy: collision between supernova ejecta and a dense circumstellar medium (2012, background): “…optical (e.g. Quimby et al. 2007, 2011; Smith et al. 2007; Barbary et al. 2009; Gal-Yam et al. 2009; Gezari et al. 2009; Miller et al. 2009; Drake et al. 2010, 2011; Pastorello et al. 2010; Chatzopoulos et al. 2011; Chomiuk et al. 2011; Rest et al. 2011; Berger et al. 2012; Leloudas et al. 2012).”
• TYPE Iax SUPERNOVAE: A NEW CLASS OF STELLAR EXPLOSION (2012, background): “…1991bg (Filippenko et al. 1992a; Leibundgut et al. 1993), respectively, as well as the unique SN 2000cx (Li et al. 2001a), SNe similar to SN 2006bt (Foley et al. 2010b), SN 2010X (Kasliwal et al. 2010), and ultraluminous SNe I (e.g., Pastorello et al. 2010; Quimby et al. 2011; Chomiuk et al. 2011).”
• The Magnetar Model for Type I Superluminous Supernovae. I. Bayesian Analysis of the Full Multicolor Light-curve Sample with MOSFiT (2017, background): “For SLSNe, the cutoff is observed to be approximately 3000Å (Chomiuk et al. 2011; Nicholl et al. 2017a).”
• SUPER-LUMINOUS TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE: CATCHING A MAGNETAR BY THE TAIL (2013, methodology): “The r−band light curve shows an asymmetric peak as for SNe 2005ap and 2010gx (Quimby et al. 2007; Pastorello et al. 2010), in contrast to the rounded peaks of the light curves of PS1-10awh and PS1-10ky (Chomiuk et al. 2011).”
• RAPIDLY EVOLVING AND LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS FROM PAN-STARRS1 (2014, background): “…2012; Hamuy 2003; Andrews et al. 2011; Botticella et al. 2009), type IIn (Kiewe et al. 2012; Margutti et al. 2014), type I SLSN (Quimby et al. 2011; Chomiuk et al. 2011; Lunnan et al. 2013), and other rapidly-evolving events (red; Drout et al. 2013; Kasliwal et al. 2010; Poznanski et al. 2010;…”
• THE ULTRAVIOLET-BRIGHT, SLOWLY DECLINING TRANSIENT PS1-11af AS A PARTIAL TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENT (2013, background): “…epochs to match the blue colors of PS1-11af exhibit a series of absorption features in the blue part of the optical that have been identified as being due to O II, the strongest being a “W”-shaped absorption near 4300 Å (e.g., Quimby et al. 2007, 2011; Pastorello et al. 2010; Chomiuk et al. 2011).”