Multi-color Optical and NIR Light Curves of 64 Stripped-Envelope Core-Collapse Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper provides the most extensive multi-color optical and near-infrared light curves for 64 stripped-envelope supernovae, enabling better classification and understanding of these stellar explosions.

Contribution

It offers a homogeneous, densely-sampled dataset of 64 low-redshift stripped-envelope supernovae, including optical and near-infrared photometry, which is the largest of its kind to date.

Findings

Identification of color trends for subtype classification

Comprehensive photometric data set for 64 supernovae

Comparison with existing literature data

Abstract

We present a densely-sampled, homogeneous set of light curves of 64 low redshift (z < 0.05) stripped-envelope supernovae (SN of type IIb, Ib, Ic and Ic-bl). These data were obtained between 2001 and 2009 at the Fred L. Whipple Observatory (FLWO) on Mt. Hopkins in Arizona, with the optical FLWO 1.2-m and the near-infrared PAIRITEL 1.3-m telescopes. Our dataset consists of 4543 optical photometric measurements on 61 SN, including a combination of UBVRI, UBVr'i', and u'BVr'i', and 2142 JHKs near-infrared measurements on 25 SN. This sample constitutes the most extensive multi-color data set of stripped-envelope SN to date. Our photometry is based on template-subtracted images to eliminate any potential host galaxy light contamination. This work presents these photometric data, compares them with data in the literature, and estimates basic statistical quantities: date of maximum, color, and photometric properties. We identify promising color trends that may permit the identification of stripped-envelope SN subtypes from their photometry alone. Many of these SN were observed spectroscopically by the CfA SN group, and the spectra are presented in a companion paper (Modjaz et al. 2014). A thorough exploration that combines the CfA photometry and spectroscopy of stripped-envelope core-collapse SN will be presented in a follow-up paper.