DES14X3taz: A Type I Superluminous Supernova Showing a Luminous, Rapidly Cooling Initial Pre-Peak Bump
Abstract
We present DES14X3taz, a new hydrogen-poor super luminous supernova (SLSN-I) discovered by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova program, with additional photometric data provided by the Survey Using DECam for Superluminous Supernovae (SUDSS). Spectra obtained using OSIRIS on the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) show DES14X3taz is a SLSN-I at z=0.608. Multi-color photometry reveals a double-peaked light curve: a blue and relatively bright initial peak that fades rapidly prior to the slower rise of the main light curve. Our multi-color photometry allows us, for the first time, to show that the initial peak cools from 22,000K to 8,000K over 15 rest-frame days, and is faster and brighter than any published core-collapse supernova, reaching 30% of the bolometric luminosity of the main peak. No physical Nickel powered model can fit this initial peak. We show that a shock-cooling model followed by a magnetar driving the second phase of the light curve can adequately explain the entire light curve of DES14X3taz. Models involving the shock-cooling of extended circumstellar material at a distance of ~400 solar radii are preferred over the cooling of shock-heated surface layers of a stellar envelope. We compare DES14X3taz to the few double-peaked SLSN-I events in the literature. Although the rise-times and characteristics of these initial peaks differ, there exists the tantalizing possibility that they can be explained by one physical interpretation.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1512.06043,
title = {DES14X3taz: A Type I Superluminous Supernova Showing a Luminous, Rapidly Cooling Initial Pre-Peak Bump},
author = {M. Smith and M. Sullivan and C. B. D'Andrea and F. J. Castander and R. Casas and S. Prajs and A. Papadopoulos and R. C. Nichol and N. V. Karpenka and S. R. Bernard and P. Brown and R. Cartier and J. Cooke and C. Curtin and T. M. Davis and D. A. Finley and R. J. Foley and A. Gal-Yam and D. A. Goldstein and S. González-Gaitán and R. R. Gupta and D. A. Howell and C. Inserra and R. Kessler and C. Lidman and J. Marriner and P. Nugent and T. A. Pritchard and M. Sako and S. Smartt and R. C. Smith and H. Spinka and R. C. Thomas and R. C. Wolf and A. Zenteno and T. M. C. Abbott and A. Benoit-Lévy and E. Bertin and D. Brooks and E. Buckley-Geer and A. Carnero Rosell and M. Carrasco Kind and J. Carretero and M. Crocce and C. E. Cunha and L. N. da Costa and S. Desai and H. T. Diehl and P. Doel and J. Estrada and A. E. Evrard and B. Flaugher and P. Fosalba and J. Frieman and D. W. Gerdes and D. Gruen and R. A. Gruendl and D. J. James and K. Kuehn and N. Kuropatkin and O. Lahav and T. S. Li and J. L. Marshall and P. Martini and C. J. Miller and R. Miquel and B. Nord and R. Ogando and A. A. Plazas and K. Reil and A. K. Romer and A. Roodman and E. S. Rykoff and E. Sanchez and V. Scarpine and M. Schubnell and I. Sevilla-Noarbe and M. Soares-Santos and F. Sobreira and E. Suchyta and M. E. C. Swanson and G. Tarle and A. R. Walker and W. Wester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.06043},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJL. 4 figures, 1 table. Minor changes