CaltechAUTHORS
Published July 10, 2014 | Version Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Precursors Prior to Type IIn Supernova Explosions are Common: Precursor Rates, Properties, and Correlations

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science
  • 2. ROR icon University of Southampton
  • 3. ROR icon Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • 4. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 5. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 6. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 7. ROR icon Carnegie Observatories
  • 8. ROR icon The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

There is a growing number of Type IIn supernovae (SNe) which present an outburst prior to their presumably final explosion. These precursors may affect the SN display, and are likely related to poorly charted phenomena in the final stages of stellar evolution. By coadding Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) images taken prior to the explosion, here we present a search for precursors in a sample of 16 Type IIn SNe. We find five SNe IIn that likely have at least one possible precursor event (PTF 10bjb, SN 2010mc, PTF 10weh, SN 2011ht, and PTF 12cxj), three of which are reported here for the first time. For each SN we calculate the control time. We find that precursor events among SNe IIn are common: at the one-sided 99% confidence level, >50% of SNe IIn have at least one pre-explosion outburst that is brighter than 3 × 10^7 L_☉ taking place up to 1/3 yr prior to the SN explosion. The average rate of such precursor events during the year prior to the SN explosion is likely ≳ 1 yr^(–1), and fainter precursors are possibly even more common. Ignoring the two weakest precursors in our sample, the precursors rate we find is still on the order of one per year. We also find possible correlations between the integrated luminosity of the precursor and the SN total radiated energy, peak luminosity, and rise time. These correlations are expected if the precursors are mass-ejection events, and the early-time light curve of these SNe is powered by interaction of the SN shock and ejecta with optically thick circumstellar material.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Astronomical Society. Received 2014 January 21; accepted 2014 May 22; published 2014 June 19. E.O.O. thanks Orly Gnat and Ehud Nakar for many discussions. This paper is based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope as part of the Palomar Transient Factory project, a scientific collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Las Cumbres Observatory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the University of Oxford, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA; the Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We are grateful for excellent staff assistance at Palomar, Lick, and Keck Observatories. E.O.O. is incumbent of the Arye Dissentshik career development chair and is grateful for support by a grant from the Israeli Ministry of Science, ISF, Minerva, Weizmann-UK and the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and The Israel Science Foundation (grant no 1829/12). A.V.F.'s group at UC Berkeley has received generous financial assistance from Gary and Cynthia Bengier, the Christopher R. Redlich Fund, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the TABASGO Foundation, and NSF grant AST-1211916.

Attached Files

Published - 0004-637X_789_2_104.pdf

Submitted - 1401.5468v1.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
48181
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20140807-120341972

Related works

Describes
http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5468 (URL)

Funding

W. M. Keck Foundation
Ministry of Science (Israel)
MINERVA (Israel)
Weizmann-UK
I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee
Israel Science Foundation
1829/12
Gary and Cynthia Bengier
Christopher R. Redlich Fund
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
TABASGO Foundation
NSF
AST-1211916

Dates

Created
2014-08-07
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-10
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Palomar Transient Factory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)