Abstract
The progenitors for many types of supernovae (SNe) are still unknown, and an approach to diagnose their physical origins is to investigate the light-curve brightness and shape of a large set ...of SNe. However, it is often difficult to compare and contrast the existing sample studies due to differences in their approaches and assumptions, for example, in how to eliminate host galaxy extinction, and this might lead to systematic errors when comparing the results. We therefore introduce the Hybrid Analytic Flux FittEr for Transients (
HAFFET
), a Python-based software package that can be applied to download photometric and spectroscopic data for transients from open online sources, derive bolometric light curves, and fit them to semianalytical models for estimation of their physical parameters. In a companion study, we have investigated a large collection of SNe Ib and Ic observed with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) with
HAFFET
, and here we detail the methodology and the software package to encourage more users. As large-scale surveys such as ZTF and LSST continue to discover increasing numbers of transients, tools such as
HAFFET
will be critical for enabling rapid comparison of models against data in statistically consistent, comparable, and reproducible ways. Additionally,
HAFFET
is created with a graphical user interface mode, which we hope will boost the efficiency and make the usage much easier (
https://github.com/saberyoung/HAFFET
).
The electromagnetic transients accompanying compact binary mergers (γ-ray bursts, afterglows and ‘macronovae’) are crucial to pinpoint the sky location of gravitational wave sources. Macronovae are ...caused by the radioactivity from freshly synthesized heavy elements, e.g. from dynamic ejecta and various types of winds. We study macronova signatures by using multidimensional radiative transfer calculations. We then employ the radiative transfer code SUPERNU and state-of-the-art LTE opacities for a few representative elements from the wind and dynamical ejecta (Cr, Pd, Se, Te, Br, Zr, Sm, Ce, Nd, U) to calculate synthetic light curves and spectra for a range of ejecta morphologies. The radioactive power of the resulting macronova is calculated with the detailed input of decay products. We assess the detection prospects for our most complex models, based on the portion of viewing angles that are sufficiently bright, at different cosmological redshifts (z). The brighter emission from the wind is unobscured by the lanthanides (or actinides) in some of the models, permitting non-zero detection probabilities for redshifts up to z = 0.07. We also find that the nuclear mass model and the resulting radioactive heating rate are crucial for the detectability. While for the most pessimistic heating rate (from the finite range droplet model) no reasonable increase in the ejecta mass or velocity, or wind mass or velocity, can possibly make the light curves agree with the observed near-infrared excess after GRB130603B, a more optimistic heating rate (from the Duflo–Zuker model) leads to good agreement. We conclude that future reliable macronova observations would constrain nuclear heating rates, and consequently help constrain nuclear mass models.
We present an analytic model for bolometric light curves which are powered by the interaction between supernova ejecta and a dense circumstellar medium. This model is aimed at modelling Type IIn ...supernovae to determine the properties of their supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium. Our model is not restricted to the case of steady mass loss and can be applied broadly. We only consider the case in which the optical depth of the unshocked circumstellar medium is not high enough to affect the light curves. We derive the luminosity evolution based on an analytic solution for the evolution of a dense shell created by the interaction. We compare our model bolometric light curves to observed bolometric light curves of three Type IIn supernovae (2005ip, 2006jd, 2010jl) and show that our model can constrain their supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium properties. Our analytic model is supported by numerical light curves from the same initial conditions.
While tidal disruption events (TDEs) have long been heralded as laboratories for the study of quiescent black holes, the small number of known TDEs and uncertainties in their emission mechanism have ...hindered progress toward this promise. Here we present 17 new TDEs that have been detected recently by the Zwicky Transient Facility along with Swift UV and X-ray follow-up observations. Our homogeneous analysis of the optical/UV light curves, including 22 previously known TDEs from the literature, reveals a clean separation of light-curve properties with spectroscopic class. The TDEs with Bowen fluorescence features in their optical spectra have smaller blackbody radii, lower optical luminosities, and higher disruption rates compared to the rest of the sample. The small subset of TDEs that show only helium emission lines in their spectra have the longest rise times, the highest luminosities, and the lowest rates. A high detection rate of Bowen lines in TDEs with small photometric radii could be explained by the high density that is required for this fluorescence mechanism. The stellar debris can provide a source for this dense material. Diffusion of photons through this debris may explain why the rise and fade timescale of the TDEs in our sample are not correlated. We also report, for the first time, the detection of soft X-ray flares from a TDE on ∼day timescales. Based on the fact that the X-ray flares peak at a luminosity similar to the optical/UV blackbody luminosity, we attribute them to brief glimpses through a reprocessing layer that otherwise obscures the inner accretion flow.
Abstract
We report our Spitzer Space Telescope observations and detections of the binary neutron star merger GW170817. At 4.5 μm, GW170817 is detected at 21.9 mag AB at +43 days and 23.9 mag AB at ...+74 days after merger. At 3.6 μm, GW170817 is not detected to a limit of 23.2 mag AB at +43 days and 23.1 mag AB at +74 days. Our detections constitute the latest and reddest constraints on the kilonova/macronova emission and composition of heavy elements. The 4.5 μm luminosity at this late phase cannot be explained by elements exclusively from the first abundance peak of the r-process. Moreover, the steep decline in the Spitzer band, with a power-law index of 3.4 ± 0.2, can be explained by a few of the heaviest isotopes with half-life around 14 d dominating the luminosity (e.g. 140Ba, 143Pr, 147Nd, 156Eu, 191Os, 223Ra, 225Ra, 233Pa, 234Th) or a model with lower deposition efficiency. This data offers evidence that the heaviest elements in the second and third r-process abundance peak were indeed synthesized. Our conclusion is verified by both analytics and network simulations and robust despite intricacies and uncertainties in the nuclear physics. Future observations with Spitzer and James Webb Space Telescope will further illuminate the relative abundance of the synthesized heavy elements.
Abstract
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) has discovered five events (0.01 <
z
< 0.4) belonging to an emerging class of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) undergoing smooth, large-amplitude, and ...rapidly rising flares. This sample consists of several transients initially classified as supernovae with narrow spectral lines. However, upon closer inspection, all of the host galaxies display Balmer lines with FWHM(H
β
) ∼ 900–1400 km s
−1
, characteristic of a narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxy. The transient events are long lived, over 400 days on average in the observed frame. We report UV and X-ray follow-up of the flares and observe persistent UV emission, with two of the five transients detected with luminous X-ray emission, ruling out a supernova interpretation. We compare the properties of this sample to previously reported flaring NLSy1 galaxies and find that they fall into three spectroscopic categories: 1) Balmer line profiles and Fe
ii
complexes typical of NLSy1s, 2) strong He
ii
profiles, and 3) He
ii
profiles including Bowen fluorescence features. The latter are members of the growing class of AGN flares attributed to enhanced accretion reported by Trakhtenbrot et al. We consider physical interpretations in the context of related transients from the literature. For example, two of the sources show high-amplitude rebrightening in the optical, ruling out a simple tidal disruption event scenario for those transients. We conclude that three of the sample belong to the Trakhtenbrot et al. class and two are tidal disruption events in NLSy1s. We also hypothesize as to why NLSy1s are preferentially the sites of such rapid enhanced flaring activity.
Abstract
We present a public catalog of transients from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) Bright Transient Survey, a magnitude-limited (
m
< 19 mag in either the
g
or
r
filter) survey for ...extragalactic transients in the ZTF public stream. We introduce cuts on survey coverage, sky visibility around peak light, and other properties unconnected to the nature of the transient, and show that the resulting statistical sample is spectroscopically 97% complete at <18 mag, 93% complete at <18.5 mag, and 75% complete at <19 mag. We summarize the fundamental properties of this population, identifying distinct duration–luminosity correlations in a variety of supernova (SN) classes and associating the majority of fast optical transients with well-established spectroscopic SN types (primarily SN Ibn and II/IIb). We measure the Type Ia SN and core-collapse (CC) SN rates and luminosity functions, which show good consistency with recent work. About 7% of CC SNe explode in very low-luminosity galaxies (
M
i
> −16 mag), 10% in red-sequence galaxies, and 1% in massive ellipticals. We find no significant difference in the luminosity or color distributions between the host galaxies of SNe Type II and SNe Type Ib/c, suggesting that line-driven wind stripping does not play a major role in the loss of the hydrogen envelope from their progenitors. Future large-scale classification efforts with ZTF and other wide-area surveys will provide high-quality measurements of the rates, properties, and environments of all known types of optical transients and limits on the existence of theoretically predicted but as yet unobserved explosions.
Early-time observations of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are essential to constrain the properties of their progenitors. In this paper, we present high-quality light curves of 127 SNe Ia discovered by ...the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in 2018. We describe our method to perform forced point-spread function photometry, which can be applied to other types of extragalactic transients. With a planned cadence of six observations per night (three g + three r), all of the 127 SNe Ia are detected in both g and r bands more than 10 days (in the rest frame) prior to the epoch of g-band maximum light. The redshifts of these objects range from z = 0.0181 to 0.165; the median redshift is 0.074. Among the 127 SNe, 50 are detected at least 14 days prior to maximum light (in the rest frame), with a subset of nine objects being detected more than 17 days before g-band peak. This is the largest sample of young SNe Ia collected to date; it can be used to study the shape and color evolution of the rising light curves in unprecedented detail. We discuss six peculiar events in this sample: one 02cx-like event ZTF18abclfee (SN 2018crl), one Ia-CSM SN ZTF18aaykjei (SN 2018cxk), and four objects with possible super-Chandrasekhar mass progenitors: ZTF18abhpgje (SN 2018eul), ZTF18abdpvnd (SN 2018dvf), ZTF18aawpcel (SN 2018cir), and ZTF18abddmrf (SN 2018dsx).
Type Ibn supernovae (SNe) are a small yet intriguing class of explosions whose spectra are characterized by low-velocity helium emission lines with little to no evidence for hydrogen. The prevailing ...theory has been that these are the core-collapse explosions of very massive stars embedded in helium-rich circumstellar material (CSM). We report optical observations of six new SNe Ibn: PTF11rfh, PTF12ldy, iPTF14aki, iPTF15ul, SN 2015G, and iPTF15akq. This brings the sample size of such objects in the literature to 22. We also report new data, including a near-infrared spectrum, on the Type Ibn SN 2015U. In order to characterize the class as a whole, we analyze the photometric and spectroscopic properties of the full Type Ibn sample. We find that, despite the expectation that CSM interaction would generate a heterogeneous set of light curves, as seen in SNe IIn, most Type Ibn light curves are quite similar in shape, declining at rates around 0.1 mag day−1 during the first month after maximum light, with a few significant exceptions. Early spectra of SNe Ibn come in at least two varieties, one that shows narrow P Cygni lines and another dominated by broader emission lines, both around maximum light, which may be an indication of differences in the state of the progenitor system at the time of explosion. Alternatively, the spectral diversity could arise from viewing-angle effects or merely from a lack of early spectroscopic coverage. Together, the relative light curve homogeneity and narrow spectral features suggest that the CSM consists of a spatially confined shell of helium surrounded by a less dense extended wind.
Abstract
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) offer a unique way to study dormant black holes. While the number of observed TDEs has grown thanks to the emergence of wide-field surveys in the past few ...decades, questions regarding the nature of the observed optical, UV, and X-ray emission remain. We present a uniformly selected sample of 30 spectroscopically classified TDEs from the Zwicky Transient Facility Phase I survey operations with follow-up Swift UV and X-ray observations. Through our investigation into correlations between light-curve properties, we recover a shallow positive correlation between the peak bolometric luminosity and decay timescales. We introduce a new spectroscopic class of TDE, TDE-featureless, which are characterized by featureless optical spectra. The new TDE-featureless class shows larger peak bolometric luminosities, peak blackbody temperatures, and peak blackbody radii. We examine the differences between the X-ray bright and X-ray faint populations of TDEs in this sample, finding that X-ray bright TDEs show higher peak blackbody luminosities than the X-ray faint subsample. This sample of optically selected TDEs is the largest sample of TDEs from a single survey yet, and the systematic discovery, classification, and follow-up of this sample allows for robust characterization of TDE properties, an important stepping stone looking forward toward the Rubin era.
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