A plausible (overlooked) super-luminous supernova in the SDSS Stripe 82 data

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a super-luminous supernova in archival SDSS data, analyzing its light curve, host galaxy properties, and suggesting a magnetar-powered origin, contributing to understanding these rare energetic events.

Contribution

It presents a new super-luminous supernova found in archival data, with detailed analysis of its light curve, host galaxy, and potential powering mechanism, expanding the known sample of such events.

Findings

The supernova peaked at M_g<-21.3 mag in September 2005.

The light curve showed a rise over 30 days and decline over 70 days.

The host galaxy is an LMC-like irregular dwarf galaxy at z=0.281.

Abstract

We present the discovery of a plausible super-luminous supernova (SLSN), found in the archival data of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82, called PSN 000123+000504. The supernova peaked at M_g<-21.3 mag in the second half of September 2005, but was missed by the real-time supernova hunt. The observed part of the light curve (17 epochs) showed that the rise to the maximum took over 30 days, while the decline time lasted at least 70 days (observed frame), closely resembling other SLSNe of SN2007bi type. Spectrum of the host galaxy reveals a redshift of z=0.281 and the distance modulus of \mu=40.77 mag. Combining this information with the SDSS photometry, we found the host galaxy to be an LMC-like irregular dwarf galaxy with the absolute magnitude of M_B=-18.2+/-0.2 mag and the oxygen abundance of 12+log[O/H]=8.3+/-0.2. Our SLSN follows the relation for the most energetic/super-luminous SNe exploding in low-metallicity environments, but we found no clear evidence for SLSNe to explode in low-luminosity (dwarf) galaxies only. The available information on the PSN 000123+000504 light curve suggests the magnetar-powered model as a likely scenario of this event. This SLSN is a new addition to a quickly growing family of super-luminous SNe.