Helium-rich Superluminous Supernovae from the Zwicky Transient Facility

Yan, Lin; Perley, D. A.; Schulze, S.; Lunnan, R.; Sollerman, J.; De, Kishalay; Chen, Z.; Fremling, C.; Gal‐Yam, A.; Taggart, K.; Chen, T.W.; Andreoni, Igor; Bellm, Eric C.; Cunningham, Virginia; Dekany, Richard; Duev, Dmitry A.; Fransson, Claes; Laher, Russ R.; Hankins, Matthew J.; Ho, Anna Y. Q.; Jencson, J.; Kaye, Stephen B.; Kulkarni, S. R.; Kasliwal, M. M.; Golkhou, V. Z.; Graham, M. J.; Masci, Frank J.; Miller, A. A.; Neill, James D.; Ofek, E. O.; Porter, Michael; Mróz, P.; Reiley, Dan; Riddle, Reed; Rigault, M.; Rusholme, B.; Shupe, D. L.; Soumagnac, Maayane T.; Smith, Roger M.; Tartaglia, L.; Yao, Yuhan; Yaron, O.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/abb8c5

Cited by 29 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The initial bumps in these SNe are among the few in our sample that are inconsistent with a central engine origin (gray region in top panel). All three also belong to the sample of heliumrich SLSNe of Yan et al (2020). Together, these pieces of evidence may suggest a CSM origin for this type of bump.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…(2) Their underlying peaks are relatively faint for SLSNe, M g −20 mag. (3) Unlike most SLSNe, Yan et al (2020) showed that spectra of these events (and three others) show helium features in their spectra. The helium features, along with the exclusion of a central origin for the light curve bumps, may suggest that this specific type of bump is produced by circumstellar interaction.…”

Section: Depth Of Luminosity Sourcementioning

confidence: 91%

“…**Light curves show two distinct bumps (Section 2.4) and spectra show helium lines(Yan et al 2020). Public photometry sources: Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS; Tonry et al 2018); Cambridge Photometric Calibration Server (CPCS; http://gsaweb.ast.cam.ac.uk/followup/); Catalina Sky Survey (CSS; Drake et al 2009); Gaia Photometric Science Alerts (http://gsaweb.ast.cam.ac.uk/alerts); Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (PS1; Chambers et al 2016); Swift Optical/Ultraviolet Supernova Archive (SOUSA; Brown et al 2014); Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; Bellm et al 2019) Photometry aggregators and brokers: Finding Luminous and Exotic Extragalactic Transients (Gomez et al 2020); Make Alerts Really Simple (https://mars.lco.global); Open Supernova Catalog (Guillochon et al 2017b); Transient Name Server (https://wis-tns.org) NOTE-See Appendix A for details on the new photometry presented in this work.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Bumpy Declining Light Curves Are Common in Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae

Hosseinzadeh,

Berger,

Metzger

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Recent work has revealed that the light curves of hydrogen-poor (Type I) superluminous supernovae (SLSNe), thought to be powered by magnetar central engines, do not always follow the smooth decline predicted by a simple magnetar spin-down model. Here we present the first systematic study of the prevalence and properties of "bumps" in the post-peak light curves of 34 SLSNe. We find that the majority (44-76%) of events cannot be explained by a smooth magnetar model alone. We do not find any difference in the supernova properties between events with and without bumps. By fitting a simple Gaussian model to the light curve residuals, we characterize each bump with an amplitude, temperature, phase, and duration. We find that most bumps correspond with an increase in the photospheric temperature of the ejecta, although we do not see drastic changes in spectroscopic features during the bump. We also find a moderate correlation (ρ ≈ 0.5; p ≈ 0.01) between the phase of the bumps and the rise time, implying that such bumps tend to happen at a certain "evolutionary phase," (3.7 ± 1.4)t rise . Most bumps are consistent with having diffused from a central source of variable luminosity, although sources further out in the ejecta are not excluded. With this evidence, we explore whether the cause of these bumps is intrinsic to the supernova (e.g., a variable central engine) or extrinsic (e.g., circumstellar interaction). Both cases are plausible, requiring low-level variability in the magnetar input luminosity, small decreases in the ejecta opacity, or a thin circumstellar shell or disk.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Depth Of Luminosity Sourcementioning

confidence: 91%

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confidence: 99%

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Bumpy Declining Light Curves Are Common in Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae

Hosseinzadeh,

Berger,

Metzger

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…There is a continuing debate in the literature as to whether SLSNe I separate further into a class of slowly-evolving events with lower velocities and cooler temperatures, and faster-evolving events with higher velocities and temperatures (Quimby et al 2018;Inserra et al 2018b). Recently, helium has also been identified in the spectra of up to ∼ 10% of SLSNe (Quimby et al 2018;Yan et al 2020), suggesting another possible sub-division into SLSNe Ib (stripped of hydrogen) and Ic (stripped of hydrogen and helium), in analogy with ordinary SNe Ib and Ic.…”

Section: Observed and Defining Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Superluminous supernovae: an explosive decade

Nicholl

2021

Preprint

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I review our current understanding of superluminous supernovae, mysterious events 100 times brighter than conventional stellar explosions. INTRODUCTION: THE DISCOVERY OF SLSNEThe study of supernovae spans centuries and cultures, with Chinese astronomers recording the oldest known 'guest star' in 185 AD. By the turn of the millenium, it was well established that core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) signal the death of a star of more than 8 M (where M is the solar mass). When the nuclear reactor in its core has converted all its fuel into stable iron, and can no longer extract energy to support itself, it collapses to a neutron star and releases its gravitational energy. Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) occur when a white dwarf gains sufficient mass from a binary companion to encounter a runaway thermonuclear reaction. Both types of supernova release ∼ 10 51 erg in kinetic energy, peak with a luminosity up to 10 9 L , and produce many of the chemical elements needed for life in the Universe.A more extreme class of 'superluminous supernovae' (SLSNe), ∼ 10 − 100 times brighter again, escaped our notice until the 21st century. Their eventual discovery was intimately tied with advances in optical sky surveys in the mid-to-late 2000s. Figure 1 shows the growth in the supernova discovery rate from 1996-2020, with a sharp uptick around 2010 driven by wide-field robotic telescopes and automated source detection employed by surveys such as the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS; Drake et al. 2009), the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Reponse System (PanSTARRS; Kaiser et al. 2010) and the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF; Rau et al. 2009).Nearly 20,000 supernovae were reported in 2020 -a 100-fold increase in just 20 years. The volumetric rate of SLSNe is only ∼1 in every few thousand supernovae (Quimby et al. 2013;Frohmaier et al. 2021), though because these brighter explosions can be detected out to greater distances, they should make up ∼1% of the supernovae detected by a given survey. Finding SLSNe in significant numbers therefore requires the discovery and classification of hundreds or thousands of supernovae per year.Yet Figure 1 also shows that the fraction (not just the absolute number) of SLSNe within a given survey also increased dramatically in 2010. Earlier surveys had targeted massive galaxies that have a correspondingly high rate of CCSNe and SNe Ia, but it turns out that SLSNe

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“…Most stripped-envelope SNe have been characterized by a single peaked light curves (LCs) and their luminosity evolution is usually reproduced by assuming a single heating source. However, it is starting to be realized that some stripped-envelope SN LCs have bumpy structure with multiple luminosity peaks (e.g., Maeda et al 2007;Roy et al 2016;Yan et al 2017Yan et al , 2020Gomez et al 2021;Prentice et al 2021). Especially, SLSNe are suggested to have bumpy LCs generally (Hosseinzadeh et al 2021;Chen et al 2022a,b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variable thermal energy injection from magnetar spin down as a possible cause of stripped-envelope supernova light-curve bumps

Moriya,

Murase,

Kashiyama

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Luminosity evolution of some stripped-envelope supernovae such as superluminous supernovae is difficult to be explained by the canonical 56 Ni nuclear decay heating. A popular alternative heating source is rapid spin down of strongly-magnetized rapidly-rotating neutron stars (magnetars) and it has been shown that magnetar spin down can explain luminosity evolution of superluminous supernovae. Recent observations have indicated that superluminous supernovae often have bumpy light curves with multiple luminosity peaks. The cause of bumpy light curves is still unknown. In this study, we investigate the possibility that the light-curve bumps are caused by variabilities in the thermal energy injection from magnetar spin down. We find that a temporal increase in the thermal energy injection can lead to multiple luminosity peaks. The multiple luminosity peaks caused by the variable thermal energy injection is found to be accompanied by significant photospheric temperature increase, and photospheric radii are not significantly changed. We show that the bumpy light curves of SN 2015bn and SN 2019stc can be reproduced by temporarily increasing magnetar spin-down energy input by a factor of 2 − 3 for 5 − 20 days. However, not all the light-curve bumps are accompanied by the clear photospheric temperature increase as predicted by our synthetic models. In particular, the secondary light-curve bump of SN 2019stc is accompanied by a temporal increase in photospheric radii rather than temperature, which is not seen in our synthetic models. We, therefore, conclude that not all the light-curve bumps observed in luminous supernovae are caused by the variable thermal energy injection from magnetar spin down and some bumps are likely caused by a different mechanism. Our study demonstrates the importance of photosphere information to identify the cause of the bumpy light curves.

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Helium-rich Superluminous Supernovae from the Zwicky Transient Facility

Cited by 29 publications

References 47 publications

Bumpy Declining Light Curves Are Common in Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae

Bumpy Declining Light Curves Are Common in Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae

Superluminous supernovae: an explosive decade

Variable thermal energy injection from magnetar spin down as a possible cause of stripped-envelope supernova light-curve bumps

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