Superluminous supernovae

TL;DR

Superluminous supernovae are exceptionally bright stellar explosions with diverse spectroscopic features, and their underlying mechanisms remain uncertain, but they are key targets for future high-redshift transient surveys.

Contribution

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the observational properties and theoretical models of superluminous supernovae, highlighting their diversity and the potential of future surveys.

Findings

SLSNe exhibit diverse spectroscopic features including hydrogen-rich and hydrogen-poor types.

Multiple mechanisms such as radioactive decay, circumstellar interaction, magnetar spin-down, and fallback accretion are proposed for their luminosity.

Future surveys will likely discover high-redshift SLSNe, aiding in understanding their nature.

Abstract

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 they show rich spectroscopic diversities including hydrogen-poor (Type I) and hydrogen-rich (Type II) subtypes. The exact mechanisms making SLSNe luminous are still not fully understood, but there are mainly four major suggested luminosity sources (radioactive decay of 56Ni, circumstellar interaction, magnetar spin-down, and fallback accretion). We provide an overview of observational properties of SLSNe and major theoretical models for them. Future transient surveys are expected to discover SLSNe at high redshifts which will provide a critical information in revealing their nature.