DES13S2cmm: The first superluminous supernova from the Dark Energy Survey
- Univ. of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom)
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Univ. of Southampton, Southampton (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States); Univ. of Illinois Urban-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
- Univ. of Illinois Urban-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States);
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
- Australian Astronomical Observatory (Australia)
- National Optical Astronomy Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
- Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom)
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States); Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- Carnegie Observatories, Pasadena, CA (United States)
- Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
- Ludwig Maximilian Univ., Munich (Germany); Excellence Cluster Universe, Garching (Germany)
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. Observatory Munich, Munich (Germany); Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching (Germany)
- The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
- ICRA, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
- Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain); Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona (Spain)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Sussex, Brighton (United Kingdom)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas(CIEMAT), Madrid (Spain)
- Instituto de Fisica, Porto Alegre (Brazil); Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
- Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Manchester, Manchester (United Kingdom)
Here, we present DES13S2cmm, the first spectroscopically-confirmed superluminous supernova (SLSN) from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We briefly discuss the data and search algorithm used to find this event in the first year of DES operations, and outline the spectroscopic data obtained from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope to confirm its redshift (z = 0.663 ± 0.001 based on the host-galaxy emission lines) and likely spectral type (Type I). When using this redshift, we find M$$peak\atop{U}$$=-21.05$$+0.10\atop{-0.09}$$ for the peak, rest-frame U-band absolute magnitude, and find DES13S2cmm to be located in a faint, low-metallicity (sub-solar), low stellar-mass host galaxy (log (M/M⊙) = 9.3 ± 0.3), consistent with what is seen for other SLSNe-I. We compare the bolometric light curve of DES13S2cmm to 14 similarly well-observed SLSNe-I in the literature and find that it possesses one of the slowest declining tails (beyond +30 d rest-frame past peak), and is the faintest at peak. Moreover, we find the bolometric light curves of all SLSNe-I studied herein possess a dispersion of only 0.2–0.3 mag between +25 and +30 d after peak (rest frame) depending on redshift range studied; this could be important for ‘standardizing’ such supernovae, as is done with the more common Type Ia. We also fit the bolometric light curve of DES13S2cmm with two competing models for SLSNe-I – the radioactive decay of 56Ni, and a magnetar – and find that while the magnetar is formally a better fit, neither model provides a compelling match to the data. Though we are unable to conclusively differentiate between these two physical models for this particular SLSN-I, further DES observations of more SLSNe-I should break this degeneracy, especially if the light curves of SLSNe-I can be observed beyond 100 d in the rest frame of the supernova.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- Contributing Organization:
- DES Collaboration
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC00112704; AC02-07CH11359; AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1201362
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1221239; OSTI ID: 1336373
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-108182-2015-JA; FERMILAB-PUB-15-020-AE-PPD; SLAC-PUB-16765; KA2301020
- Journal Information:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 449, Issue 2; Conference: Naples (Italy), 3-5 Jun 2014; ISSN 0035-8711
- Publisher:
- Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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