Related papers: Superluminous supernovae: an explosive decade
Superluminous supernovae are a new class of supernovae that were recognized about a decade ago. Both observational and theoretical progress has been significant in the last decade. In this review, we first briefly summarize the…
Over a decade ago, a group of supernova explosions with peak luminosities far exceeding (often by >100) those of normal events, has been identified. These superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) have been a focus of intensive study. I review the…
Understanding how massive stars die as supernovae is a crucial question in modern astrophysics. Supernovae are powerful stellar explosions and key drivers in the cosmic baryonic cycles by injecting their explosion energy and heavy elements…
Supernovae (SNe), the luminous explosions of stars, were observed since antiquity, with typical peak luminosity not exceeding 1.2x10^{43} erg/s (absolute magnitude >-19.5 mag). It is only in the last dozen years that numerous examples of…
Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a population of supernovae (SNe) whose peak luminosities are much larger than those of canonical SNe. Although SLSNe were simply defined by their peak luminosity at first, it is currently recognized that…
The last ten years have opened up a new parameter space in time-domain astronomy with the discovery of transients defying our understanding of how stars explode. These extremes of the transient paradigm represent the brightest - called…
Giant eruptions or supernova-impostor events are far more mysterious than true supernovae. An extreme example can release as much radiative energy as a SN, ejecting several M_sun of material. These events involve continuous radiation-driven…
Supernovae (SNe) are stellar explosions driven by gravitational or thermonuclear energy, observed as electromagnetic radiation emitted over weeks or more. In all known SNe, this radiation comes from internal energy deposited in the…
In this article, a broad perspective of supernovae, their classification and mechanism is given. Later, the astrophysical significance of supernovae is discussed in brief.
A rare class of `super-luminous' supernovae that are about ten or more times more luminous at their peaks than other types of luminous supernovae has recently been found at low to intermediate redshifts. A small subset of these events have…
The discovery of many objects with unprecedented, amazing observational characteristics caused the last decade to be the most prolific period for the supernova research. Many of these new supernovae are transitional objects between existing…
The most luminous Supernova SN2006gy (more than a 100 times brighter than a typical supernova) has been a challenge to explain by standard models. For example, pair instability supernovae which are luminous enough seem to have too slow a…
What makes a supernova truly `peculiar?' In this chapter we attempt to address this question by tracing the history of the use of `peculiar' as a descriptor of non-standard supernovae back to the original binary spectroscopic classification…
Superluminous supernovae are beginning to be discovered at redshifts as early as the epoch of reionization. A number of candidate mechanisms is reviewed, together with the discovery programs.
The cosmological standard model at present is widely accepted as containing mainly things we do not understand. In particular the appearance of a Cosmological Constant, or dark energy, is puzzling. This was first inferred from the Hubble…
I will try to put the ultraluminous galaxy phenomenon into a broad cosmological context. Viewed from this perspective, the significance of ultraluminous galaxies and the `starburst vs. monster' debate becomes clear. Ultraluminous galaxies…
Super-luminous supernova (SLSN) are supernovae showing extreme properties in their light-curves: high peak luminosities (more than 10 times brighter than bright SN Ia), and long durations. Several mechanisms have been proposed for SLSN,…
Recent observations have revealed an amazing diversity of extremely luminous supernovae, seemingly increasing in radiant energy without bound. We consider here the physical limits of what existing models can provide for the peak luminosity…
Thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae are bright stellar explosions, the light curves of which can be calibrated to allow for use as "standard candles" for measuring cosmological distances. Contemporary research investigates how the brightness…
A new class of ultra-long duration (>10,000 s) gamma-ray bursts has recently been suggested. They may originate in the explosion of stars with much larger radii than normal long gamma-ray bursts or in the tidal disruptions of a star. No…