| 1. |
- Ho, Anna Y. Q., et al.
(författare)
-
iPTF Archival Search for Fast Optical Transients
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : American Astronomical Society. - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 854:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There has been speculation about a class of relativistic explosions with an initial Lorentz factor Gamma(init) smaller than that of classical gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). These dirty fireballs would lack prompt GRB emission but could be pursued via their optical afterglow, appearing as transients that fade overnight. Here we report a search for such transients (that fade by 5-sigma in magnitude overnight) in four years of archival photometric data from the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF). Our search criteria yielded 50 candidates. Of these, two were afterglows to GRBs that had been found in dedicated follow-up observations to triggers from the Fermi GRB Monitor. Another (iPTF14yb) was a GRB afterglow discovered serendipitously. Eight were spurious artifacts of reference image subtraction, and one was an asteroid. The remaining 38 candidates have red stellar counterparts in external catalogs. The photometric and spectroscopic properties of the counterparts identify these transients as strong flares from M dwarfs of spectral type M3-M7 at distances of d approximate to 0.15-2.1 kpc; three counterparts were already spectroscopically classified as late-type M stars. With iPTF14yb as the only confirmed relativistic outflow discovered independently of a high-energy trigger, we constrain the all-sky rate of transients that peak at m = 18 and fade by Delta m = 2 mag in Delta t = 3 hr to be 680 yr(-1), with a 68% confidence interval of 119-2236 yr(-1). This implies that the rate of visible dirty fireballs is at most comparable to that of the known population of long-duration GRBs.
|
|
| 2. |
- Quimby, Robert M., et al.
(författare)
-
Spectra of Hydrogen-poor Superluminous Supernovae from the Palomar Transient Factory
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 855:1, s. 1-57
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most Type I superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) reported to date have been identified by their high peak luminosities and spectra lacking obvious signs of hydrogen. We demonstrate that these events can be distinguished from normal-luminosity SNe (including Type Ic events) solely from their spectra over a wide range of light-curve phases. We use this distinction to select 19 SLSNe-I and four possible SLSNe-I from the Palomar Transient Factory archive (including seven previously published objects). We present 127 new spectra of these objects and combine these with 39 previously published spectra, and we use these to discuss the average spectral properties of SLSNe-I at different spectral phases. We find that Mn II most probably contributes to the ultraviolet spectral features after maximum light, and we give a detailed study of the O II features that often characterize the early-time optical spectra of SLSNe-I. We discuss the velocity distribution of O II, finding that for some SLSNe-I this can be confined to a narrow range compared to relatively large systematic velocity shifts. Mg II and Fe II favor higher velocities than O II and C II, and we briefly discuss how this may constrain power-source models. We tentatively group objects by how well they match either SN 2011ke or PTF12dam and discuss the possibility that physically distinct events may have been previously grouped together under the SLSN-I label.
|
|
