Rates of superluminous supernovae at z ∼ 0.2

By R. Quimby, F. Yuan, C. Akerlof, J. C. Wheeler. 2013

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We calculate the volumetric rate of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) based on 5 events discovered with the ROTSE-IIIb telescope. We gather light curves of 19 events from the literature and our own unpublished data and employ crude k-corrections to constrain the pseudo-absolute magnitude distributions in the rest frame ROTSE-IIIb (unfiltered) band pass for both the hydrogen poor (SLSN-I) and hydrogen rich (SLSN-II) populations. We find that the peak magnitudes of the available SLSN-I are narrowly distributed ($M = -21.7 \pm 0.4$) in our unfiltered band pass and may suggest an even tighter intrinsic distribution when the effects of dust are considered, although the sample may be skewed by selection and publication biases. The presence of OII features near maximum light may uniquely signal a high luminosity event, and we suggest further observational and theoretical work is warranted to assess the possible utility of such SN 2005ap-like SLSN-I as distance indicators. Using the pseudo-absolute magnitude distributions derived from the light curve sample, we measure the SLSN-I rate to be about (32^{+77}_{-26}) events Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1} h_{71}^{3} at a weighted redshift of z = 0.17, and the SLSN-II rate to be about (151^{+151}_{-82}) events Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1} h_{71}^{3} at z = 0.15. Given that the exact nature and limits of these populations are still unknown, we discuss how it may be difficult to distinguish these rare SLSNe from other transient phenomena such as AGN activity and tidal disruption events even when multi-band photometry, spectroscopy, or even high resolution imaging are available. Including one spectroscopically peculiar event, we determine a total rate for SLSN-like events of (199^{+137}_{-86}) events Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1} h_{71}^{3} at z = 0.16.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b3cae45fefe2d3ea925a2190819565f10646a620

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

• RAPIDLY EVOLVING AND LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS FROM PAN-STARRS1 (2014, methodology): “We therefore use a Monte Carlo approach similar to that utilized in Quimby et al. (2012, 2013) to calculate the efficiency with which each PS1MDS field can recover these transients as a function of distance.”
• HYDROGEN-POOR SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AND LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS HAVE SIMILAR HOST GALAXIES (2013, background): “The superluminous SN PS1-10afx did not resemble any previously seen SLSNe, and may represent a new class of transients (Chornock et al. 2013); its unusual properties lead Quimby et al. (2013b) to conclude that it may have been a lensed Type Ia SN rather than a SLSN.”
• ANALYTICAL LIGHT CURVE MODELS OF SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE: χ2-MINIMIZATION OF PARAMETER FITS (2013, methodology): “The discovery of SLSNe (Quimby et al. 2007; Smith et al. 2007; Gal-Yam 2012; Quimby et al. 2013) imposed challenges to the widely used mechanism of 56Ni and 56Co radioactive decay diffusion (Arnett 1980, 1982, 1996; hereafter A80, A82, A96) as the typical power input of many observed SN LCs that do…”
• TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE STRONGLY INTERACTING WITH THEIR CIRCUMSTELLAR MEDIUM (2013, unknown): “−21 mag (Gal-Yam 2012; Quimby et al. 2013).”
• The Zwicky Transient Facility Bright Transient Survey. II. A Public Statistical Sample for Exploring Supernova Demographics (2020, methodology): “…end of the CCSN rate curve implies an SLSN rate (above M<−21 mag) of - +5.6 2.8 5.4 Gpc−3 yr−1, which is much lower than the commonly cited estimate by Quimby et al. (2013) of - +199 86 137 Gpc−3 yr−1).31 We will present further calculations of the SLSN rate and luminosity function (using the full…”
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives (2019, background): “First, while more than 100 SLSNe from many different surveys have been reported to date (e.g., De Cia et al. 2018 (PTF), Lunnan et al. 2018 (PS1)), fundamental population properties such as the SLSN rate are still only poorly constrained (Quimby et al. 2013; McCrum et al. 2015; Prajs et al. 2017).”
• On the diversity of superluminous supernovae: ejected mass as the dominant factor (2015, background): “This contains a compilation of SNe Ibc from the literature that have good photometric data in griz, as well as the homogeneous SDSS II sample of Taddia et al. (2015)”
• Spectroscopy of superluminous supernova host galaxies. A preference of hydrogen-poor events for extreme emission line galaxies (2014, background): “Even if the rate of SLSN is overall low (Quimby et al. 2013), their preference for a specific type of galaxies might imply that their feedback effect in these systems is worth investigating.”