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  • PTF 10fqs: A Luminous Red N...
    Kasliwal, Mansi M; Kulkarni, Shri R; Arcavi, Iair; Quimby, Robert M; Ofek, Eran O; Nugent, Peter; Jacobsen, Janet; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Green, Yoav; Yaron, Ofer; Fox, Derek B; Howell, Jacob L; Bradley Cenko, S; Kleiser, Io; Bloom, Joshua S; Miller, Adam; Li, Weidong; Filippenko, Alexei V; Starr, Dan; Poznanski, Dovi; Law, Nicholas M; Helou, George; Frail, Dale A; Neill, James D; Forster, Karl; Christopher Martin, D; Tendulkar, Shriharsh P; Gehrels, Neil; Kennea, Jamie; Sullivan, Mark; Bildsten, Lars; Dekany, Richard; Rahmer, Gustavo; Hale, David; Smith, Roger; Zolkower, Jeff; Velur, Viswa; Walters, Richard; Henning, John; Bui, Kahnh; McKenna, Dan; Blake, Cullen

    Astrophysical journal/˜The œAstrophysical journal, 04/2011, Letnik: 730, Številka: 2
    Journal Article

    The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is systematically charting the optical transient and variable sky. A primary science driver of PTF is building a complete inventory of transients in the local universe (distance less than 200 Mpc). Here, we report the discovery of PTF 10fqs, a transient in the luminosity 'gap' between novae and supernovae. Located on a spiral arm of Messier 99, PTF 10fqs has a peak luminosity of Mr = --12.3, red color (g -- r = 1.0), and is slowly evolving (decayed by 1 mag in 68 days). It has a spectrum dominated by intermediate-width H Delta *a (930 km s--1) and narrow calcium emission lines. The explosion signature (the light curve and spectra) is overall similar to that of M85 OT2006-1, SN 2008S, and NGC 300 OT. The origin of these events is shrouded in mystery and controversy (and in some cases, in dust). PTF 10fqs shows some evidence of a broad feature (around 8600 A) that may suggest very large velocities (10,000 km s--1) in this explosion. Ongoing surveys can be expected to find a few such events per year. Sensitive spectroscopy, infrared monitoring, and statistics (e.g., disk versus bulge) will eventually make it possible for astronomers to unravel the nature of these mysterious explosions.