Hydrogen-Poor Superluminous Supernovae from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey

TL;DR

This paper presents a detailed study of 17 hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae from the Pan-STARRS1 survey, revealing their diverse light curve shapes, high luminosities, and high-redshift distribution, expanding understanding of these rare cosmic events.

Contribution

It provides the first high-redshift sample of hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae with multi-filter light curves and spectral classification, highlighting their diversity and luminosity characteristics.

Findings

Peak luminosities of (0.5-5) x 10^{44} erg/s

Diverse light curve shapes with rise and decline times spanning a factor of 5

Median peak magnitude at 4000 Å of -21.1 mag

Abstract

We present light curves and classification spectra of 17 hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey (PS1 MDS). Our sample contains all objects from the PS1 MDS sample with spectroscopic classification that are similar to either of the prototypes SN2005ap or SN2007bi, without an explicit limit on luminosity. With a redshift range $0.3 < z < 1.6$, PS1MDS is the first SLSN sample primarily probing the high-redshift population; our multi-filter PS1 light curves probe the rest-frame UV emission, and hence the peak of the spectral energy distribution. We measure the temperature evolution and construct bolometric light curves, and find peak luminosities of $(0.5-5) \times 10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and lower limits on the total radiated energies of $(0.3-2) \times 10^{51}$ erg. The light curve shapes are diverse, with both rise- and decline times spanning a factor of $\sim 5$, and several examples of double-peaked light curves. When correcting for the flux-limited nature of our survey, we find a median peak luminosity at 4000 {\AA} of $M_{\rm 4000} = -21.1$ mag, and a spread of $\sigma = 0.7$ mag.