Rapidly evolving transients in the Dark Energy Survey

Journal Article · Wed Aug 29 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2309· OSTI ID:1436720

Pursiainen, M.  ^[1]; Childress, M.  ^[1]; Smith, M. ^[1]; Prajs, S. ^[1]; Sullivan, M. ^[1]; Davis, T. M. ^[2]; Foley, R. J. ^[3]; Asorey, J. ^[4]; Calcino, J. ^[5]; Carollo, D. ^[6]; Curtin, C. ^[7]; D’Andrea, C. B. ^[8]; Glazebrook, K. ^[7]; Gutierrez, C. ^[1]; Hinton, S. R.  ^[5]; Hoormann, J. K. ^[5]; Inserra, C.  ^[1]; Kessler, R. ^[9]; King, A. ^[5]; Kuehn, K. ^[10] ; Lewis, G. F. ^[11]; Lidman, C. ^[12]; Macaulay, E. ^[5]; Möller, A. ^[13]; Nichol, R. C. ^[14]; Sako, M. ^[8]; Sommer, N. E. ^[13]; Swann, E. ^[14]; Tucker, B. E. ^[13]; Uddin, S. A. ^[15]; Wiseman, P. ^[1]; Zhang, B.  ^[13]; Abbott, T. M. C. ^[16]; Abdalla, F B ^[17]; Allam, S. ^[18]; Annis, J. ^[18]; Avila, S.  ^[14]; Brooks, D. ^[19]; Buckley-Geer, E. ^[18]; Burke, D. L. ^[20]; Carnero Rosell, A. ^[21]; Carrasco Kind, M. ^[22]; Carretero, J. ^[23]; Castander, F J ^[24]; Cunha, C. E. ^[25]; Davis, C. ^[25]; De Vicente, J. ^[26]; Diehl, H. T. ^[18]; Doel, P. ^[19]; Eifler, T. F. ^[27]; Flaugher, B. ^[18]; Fosalba, P. ^[24]; Frieman, J. ^[28]; García-Bellido, J. ^[29]; Gruen, D.  ^[20]; Gruendl, R. A. ^[22]; Gutierrez, G. ^[18]; Hartley, W. G. ^[30]; Hollowood, D L ^[3]; Honscheid, K. ^[31]; James, D. J. ^[32]; Jeltema, T. ^[3]; Kuropatkin, N. ^[18]; Li, T. S. ^[28]; Lima, M. ^[33]; Maia, M. A. G. ^[21]; Martini, P. ^[34]; Menanteau, F. ^[22]; Ogando, R. L. C. ^[21]; Plazas, A. A. ^[35]; Roodman, A. ^[20]; Sanchez, E. ^[26]; Scarpine, V. ^[18]; Schindler, R. ^[36]; Smith, R. C. ^[16]; Soares-Santos, M.  ^[37]; Sobreira, F. ^[38]; Suchyta, E.  ^[39]; Swanson, M. E. C. ^[40]; Tarle, G. ^[41]; Tucker, D. L. ^[18]; Walker, A. R. ^[16]

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1. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
2. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO); School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia
3. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
4. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO); School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia; Centre for Astrophysics, Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia
5. School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia
6. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO)
7. Centre for Astrophysics, Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia
8. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
9. Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
10. Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia
11. Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
12. Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia; The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, ACT 2601, Australia
13. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO); The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, ACT 2601, Australia
14. Institute of Cosmology, Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK
15. ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO); Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, Jiangshu 210008, China
16. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
17. Department of Physics, Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK; Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, PO Box 94, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
18. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P. O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
19. Department of Physics, Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
20. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics, Cosmology, P. O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
21. Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil; Observatório Nacional, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil
22. Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
23. Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain
24. Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), 08193 Barcelona, Spain; Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
25. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics, Cosmology, P. O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
26. Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), 28040 Madrid, Spain
27. Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
28. Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P. O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
29. Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
30. Department of Physics, Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK; Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 16, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
31. Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
32. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
33. Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil; Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 66318, São Paulo SP 05314-970, Brazil
34. Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
35. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
36. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
37. Physics Department, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453, USA
38. Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil; Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas SP 13083-859, Brazil
39. Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
40. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
41. Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

We present the results of a search for rapidly evolving transients in the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Programme. These events are characterized by fast light-curve evolution (rise to peak in ≲10 d and exponential decline in ≲30 d after peak). We discovered 72 events, including 37 transients with a spectroscopic redshift from host galaxy spectral features. The 37 events increase the total number of rapid optical transients by more than a factor of two. They are found at a wide range of redshifts (0.05 < z < 1.56) and peak brightnesses (-15.75 > Mg > -22.25). The multiband photometry is well fit by a blackbody up to few weeks after peak. The events appear to be hot (T ≈ 10 000–30 000 K) and large (R ≈ 1014 - 2 × 1015 cm) at peak, and generally expand and cool in time, though some events show evidence for a receding photosphere with roughly constant temperature. Spectra taken around peak are dominated by a blue featureless continuum consistent with hot, optically thick ejecta. We compare our events with a previously suggested physical scenario involving shock breakout in an optically thick wind surrounding a core-collapse supernova, we conclude that current models for such a scenario might need an additional power source to describe the exponential decline. We find that these transients tend to favour star-forming host galaxies, which could be consistent with a core-collapse origin. However, more detailed modelling of the light curves is necessary to determine their physical origin.

• Research Organization: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
• Contributing Organization: DES Collaboration
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359; AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1436720
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1479697
• Report Number(s): arXiv:1803.04869; FERMILAB-PUB-18-068-PPD; 1662356; TRN: US1900224
• Journal Information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 481, Issue 1; ISSN 0035-8711
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
supernovae: general