HYDROGEN-POOR SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AND LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS HAVE SIMILAR HOST GALAXIES

By R. Lunnan, Ryan Chornock, E. Berger, T. Laskar, W. Fong, Armin Rest, N. Sanders, P. Challis, M. Drout, Ryan J. Foley and 20 more. 2013

183 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present optical spectroscopy and optical/near-IR photometry of 31 host galaxies of hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe), including 15 events from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey. Our sample spans the redshift range 0.1 ≲ z ≲ 1.6, and is the first comprehensive host galaxy study of this specific subclass of cosmic explosions. Combining the multi-band photometry and emission-line measurements, we determine the luminosities, stellar masses, star formation rates, and metallicities. We find that, as a whole, the hosts of SLSNe are a low-luminosity (〈MB〉 ≈ −17.3 mag), low stellar mass (〈M*〉 ≈ 2 × 108 M☉) population, with a high median specific star formation rate (〈sSFR〉 ≈ 2 Gyr−1). The median metallicity of our spectroscopic sample is low, 12 + log (O/H) ≈ 8.35 ≈ 0.45 Z☉, although at least one host galaxy has solar metallicity. The host galaxies of H-poor SLSNe are statistically distinct from the hosts of GOODS core-collapse SNe (which cover a similar redshift range), but resemble the host galaxies of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) in terms of stellar mass, SFR, sSFR, and metallicity. This result indicates that the environmental causes leading to massive stars forming either SLSNe or LGRBs are similar, and in particular that SLSNe are more effectively formed in low metallicity environments. We speculate that the key ingredient is large core angular momentum, leading to a rapidly spinning magnetar in SLSNe and an accreting black hole in LGRBs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/608aacc40ab8b92805c62f275f27240ae8ac64a7

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. E. Berger
2. B. Metzger
3. Bing Zhang
4. S. Smartt
5. Ryan Chornock
6. E. Quataert
7. D. Kasen
8. B. Margalit

Citations in the corpus

• The Magnetar Model for Type I Superluminous Supernovae. I. Bayesian Analysis of the Full Multicolor Light-curve Sample with MOSFiT (2017, background): “SLSN host galaxy studies indicate an extinction AV < 0.5 mag (Lunnan et al. 2014); we therefore leave AV free to vary, with a flat prior between 0 and 0.5 magnitudes.”
• Spectroscopy of superluminous supernova host galaxies. A preference of hydrogen-poor events for extreme emission line galaxies (2014, methodology): “A statistically significant difference (>2.7σ ) between the mass distributions of H-poor SLSN and GRB hosts was also observed by Lunnan et al. (2014a), despite their conclusion that GRB and H-poor SLSN hosts are similar.”
• The Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102 as Seen on Milliarcsecond Angular Scales (2017, background): “Lunnan et al. (2014) and Perley et al. (2016) show that superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are typically hosted by low-metallicity, low-mass galaxies, and are possibly powered by millisecond magnetars.”
• A Multi-telescope Campaign on FRB 121102: Implications for the FRB Population (2017, background): “These galaxies are the preferred environment for long GRBs and hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (LGRB and SLSN-I, respectively), which have been suggested are signatures of magnetar birth (Modjaz et al. 2008; Lunnan et al. 2014).”
• Millisecond Magnetar Birth Connects FRB 121102 to Superluminous Supernovae and Long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2017, background): “Both classes tend to concentrate in bright UV regions of their hosts (e.g. Fruchter et al. 2006; Lunnan et al. 2014; Schulze et al. 2016).”
• The diversity of transients from magnetar birth in core collapse supernovae (2015, background): “A connection between SLSNe-I and LGRBs is suggested by similarities in their host galaxy properties (Lunnan et al. 2014; Leloudas et al. 2015).”
• RAPIDLY EVOLVING AND LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS FROM PAN-STARRS1 (2014, result): “This is in contrast to the hosts of LGRBs and type I SLSN, both of which have been shown to obey a relation in the mass-metallicity plane that is offset below the bulk of star-forming galaxies (Levesque et al. 2010b; Lunnan et al. 2014).”
• On the diversity of superluminous supernovae: ejected mass as the dominant factor (2015, background): “…Inserra et al. 2013) and occur in low-metallicity dwarf galaxies – perhaps similar to the hosts of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs; Neill et al. 2011; Chen et al. 2013; Lunnan et al. 2014), and possibly in even more extreme star-forming environments (Chen et al. 2015; Leloudas et al. 2015).”