Abstract
Transient and Time Domain Astronomy: Robotic telescopes, surveys and the evolution of transient phenomena
Bumps in superluminous supernova light curves
Szymon Prajs
Mark Sullivan (Southampton), Mat Smith (Southampton), Chris D'Andrea (Southampton), Natasha Karpenka (Southampton)
University of Southampton
Superluminous Supernovae (SLSN) are a class of astrophysical transients with a luminosity often 50 times greater than that of classical SNe. With only ~20 well studied objects of this class, their physical origin is still a mystery, with the birth and spin-down of a magnetar often cited as the most likely scenario. New observations show that some of these events are preceded by a blue and fast 'bump' in the light curve, which could be interpreted as a signature of shock-cooling of an extended stellar envelope.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova program is a large, multi-year imaging survey at the CTIO 4-m telescope designed to study high redshift supernovae. From the first three years of data, we have identified 13 spectroscopically confirmed superluminous supernovae and around 20 photometrically-selected candidate events out to redshift of 2, all with high-quality homogeneous multi-colour data. We will present an analysis of the early-time photometric data of this sample, constraining the presence and physical origin of initial 'bumps' in the light curves.
Schedule
Thursday
16:30 - 18:00
16:30
BS - Lecture Theatre A25 (121)

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