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Title: The detection rate of early UV emission from supernovae: A dedicated GALEX/PTF survey and calibrated theoretical estimates

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
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  1. The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot (Israel)
  2. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  3. Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Haifa, Haifa (Israel)
  5. Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (Israel)
  6. Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv (Israel)
  7. ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland)
  8. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, Goleta, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
  9. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  10. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  11. Univ. of Southampton, Southampton (United Kingdom)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The radius and surface composition of an exploding massive star, as well as the explosion energy per unit mass, can be measured using early UV observations of core-collapse supernovae (SNe). We present the first results from a simultaneous GALEX/PTF search for early ultraviolet (UV) emission from SNe. Six SNe II and one Type II superluminous SN (SLSN-II) are clearly detected in the GALEX near-UV (NUV) data. We compare our detection rate with theoretical estimates based on early, shock-cooling UV light curves calculated from models that fit existing Swift and GALEXobservations well, combined with volumetric SN rates. We find that our observations are in good agreement with calculated rates assuming that red supergiants (RSGs) explode with fiducial radii of 500 R⊙, explosion energies of 1051 erg, and ejecta masses of 10 M⊙. Exploding blue supergiants and Wolf-Rayet stars are poorly constrained. We describe how such observations can be used to derive the progenitor radius, surface composition, and explosion energy per unit mass of such SN events, and we demonstrate why UV observations are critical for such measurements. We use the fiducial RSG parameters to estimate the detection rate of SNe during the shock-cooling phase (<1 day after explosion) for several ground-based surveys (PTF, ZTF, and LSST). We show that the proposed wide-field UV explorer ULTRASAT mission is expected to find >85 SNe per year (~0.5 SN per deg2), independent of host galaxy extinction, down to an NUV detection limit of 21.5 mag AB. Lastly, our pilot GALEX/PTF project thus convincingly demonstrates that a dedicated, systematic SN survey at the NUV band is a compelling method to study how massive stars end their life.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Contributing Organization:
The ULTRASAT Science Team; The WTTH consortium; the GALEX Science Team; The Palomar Transient Factory
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1525138
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 820, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 22 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (11)

Wide-field ultraviolet imager for astronomical transient studies journal March 2018
The delay of shock breakout due to circumstellar material evident in most type II supernovae journal September 2018
A new, faint population of X-ray transients journal February 2017
The GRB–SLSN connection: misaligned magnetars, weak jet emergence, and observational signatures journal January 2018
Illuminating gravitational waves: A concordant picture of photons from a neutron star merger journal October 2017
Supernova PTF 12glz: A Possible Shock Breakout Driven through an Aspherical Wind journal February 2019
The First Hours of the GW170817 Kilonova and the Importance of Early Optical and Ultraviolet Observations for Constraining Emission Models journal March 2018
A New, Faint Population of X-ray Transients text January 2017
The GRB-SLSN Connection: mis-aligned magnetars, weak jet emergence, and observational signatures text January 2017
Illuminating Gravitational Waves: A Concordant Picture of Photons from a Neutron Star Merger text January 2017
The delay of shock breakout due to circumstellar material seen in most Type II Supernovae text January 2018

Figures / Tables (13)

Fig. 1(p. 8)figure Fig. 1
Fig. 2(p. 11)figure Fig. 2
Fig. 3(p. 12)figure Fig. 3
Fig. 4(p. 13)figure Fig. 4
Fig. 5(p. 15)figure Fig. 5
Fig. 6(p. 16)figure Fig. 6
Fig. 7(p. 19)figure Fig. 7
Fig. 88(p. 20)figure Fig. 88
Table 1(p. 21)table Table 1
Fig. 9(p. 22)figure Fig. 9
Fig. 10(p. 26)figure Fig. 10
Table 2(p. 28)table Table 2
Table 3(p. 29)table Table 3

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