ULTRA-BRIGHT OPTICAL TRANSIENTS ARE LINKED WITH TYPE Ic SUPERNOVAE

By A. Pastorello, S. Smartt, M. Botticella, K. Maguire, Morgan Fraser, Kenneth W. Smith, R. Kotak, L. Magill, S. Valenti, D. Young and 49 more. 2010

190 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent searches by unbiased, wide-field surveys have uncovered a group of extremely luminous optical transients. The initial discoveries of SN 2005ap by the Texas Supernova Search and SCP-06F6 in a deep Hubble pencil beam survey were followed by the Palomar Transient Factory confirmation of host redshifts for other similar transients. The transients share the common properties of high optical luminosities (peak magnitudes ∼−21 to −23), blue colors, and a lack of H or He spectral features. The physical mechanism that produces the luminosity is uncertain, with suggestions ranging from jet-driven explosion to pulsational pair instability. Here, we report the most detailed photometric and spectral coverage of an ultra-bright transient (SN 2010gx) detected in the Pan-STARRS 1 sky survey. In common with other transients in this family, early-time spectra show a blue continuum and prominent broad absorption lines of O ii. However, about 25 days after discovery, the spectra developed type Ic supernova features, showing the characteristic broad Fe ii and Si ii absorption lines. Detailed, post-maximum follow-up may show that all SN 2005ap and SCP-06F6 type transients are linked to supernovae Ic. This poses problems in understanding the physics of the explosions: there is no indication from late-time photometry that the luminosity is powered by 56Ni, the broad light curves suggest very large ejected masses, and the slow spectral evolution is quite different from typical Ic timescales. The nature of the progenitor stars and the origin of the luminosity are intriguing and open questions.

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Citations in the corpus

• HYDROGEN-POOR SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AND LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS HAVE SIMILAR HOST GALAXIES (2013, background): “Many of these objects form a spectroscopic subclass characterized by a blue continuum with a few broad rest-frame UV absorption features from intermediate-mass elements; in some cases the spectra develop Ic features at late times (Pastorello et al. 2010; Quimby et al. 2011b; Chomiuk et al. 2011).”
• Rates of superluminous supernovae at z ∼ 0.2 (2013, background): “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).”
• On the diversity of superluminous supernovae: ejected mass as the dominant factor (2015, methodology): “As discussed in Chomiuk et al. (2011), Quimby et al. (2011) and Pastorello et al. (2010), the peak luminosity means that the 56Ni mass would have to be greater than or similar to the total ejecta mass.”
• ANALYTICAL LIGHT CURVE MODELS OF SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE: χ2-MINIMIZATION OF PARAMETER FITS (2013, methodology): “Later spectra also show broad P Cygni absorptions of Ca II, Fe II and Si II which led to classification of the object as a SN Ib/c. Pastorello et al. (2010) have difficulty suggesting a model that accounts for the overall characteristics of SN 2010gx (spectral evolution, fast evolution of LC, peak…”
• Spectroscopy of superluminous supernova host galaxies. A preference of hydrogen-poor events for extreme emission line galaxies (2014, background): “SNe Ic-BL have been shown to be related to GRBs (e.g. Hjorth et al. 2003) and have also spectroscopic similarities with SLSNeI at post-maximum phases (Pastorello et al. 2010).”
• COSMOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS FROM MEASUREMENTS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE DISCOVERED DURING THE FIRST 1.5 yr OF THE Pan-STARRS1 SURVEY (2013, methodology): “In parallel, we are also exploiting the Pan-STARRS1 3π survey for detection of brighter transients at lower redshifts (Pastorello et al. 2010; Valenti et al. 2012; Inserra et al. 2013).”
• The Magnetar Model for Type I Superluminous Supernovae. I. Bayesian Analysis of the Full Multicolor Light-curve Sample with MOSFiT (2017, background): “Perhaps this is not surprising, as SLSNe show spectroscopic similarity to both classes of H-poor SNe (Pastorello et al. 2010).”
• THE ULTRAVIOLET-BRIGHT, SLOWLY DECLINING TRANSIENT PS1-11af AS A PARTIAL TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENT (2013, background): “Other objects show Fe II features in the rest-frame optical (e.g., Inserra et al. 2013) and even evolve to resemble normal SNe Ic (Pastorello et al. 2010; Quimby et al. 2011).”
• SHOCK BREAKOUT IN DENSE MASS LOSS: LUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE (2011, background): “An example of a different type of luminous supernova is SN 2010gx and related objects (Pastorello et al. 2010; Quimby et al. 2009).”
• 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).”
• 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).”
• Pan-STARRS1 DISCOVERY OF TWO ULTRALUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AT z ≈ 0.9 (2011, methodology): “SN 2010gx was not well observed on the rise, although the one meaningful upper limit (unfiltered; Pastorello et al. 2010) is suggestive of a faster rise to maximum than the other three.”
• PESSTO: survey description and products from the first data release by the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects (2014, background): “…wide-field searching produces large numbers of transients that can be filtered for objects at the extreme end of the supernova luminosity distribution (e.g. Drake et al. 2010; Pastorello et al. 2010; Inserra et al. 2013) and luminous transient events in the cores of galaxies (Drake et al. 2011).”
• 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).”