Real-time detection and rapid multiwavelength follow-up observations of a highly subluminous type II-P supernova from the palomar transient factory survey

Avishay Gal-Yam*, Mansi M. Kasliwal, Iair Arcavi, Yoav Green, Ofer Yaron, Sagi Ben-Ami, Dong Xu, Assaf Sternberg, Robert M. Quimby, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, Eran O. Ofek, Richard Walters, Peter E. Nugent, Dovi Poznanski, Joshua S. Bloom, S. Bradley Cenko, Alexei V. Filippenko, Weidong Li, Jeffrey M. Silverman, Emma S. WalkerMark Sullivan, K. Maguire, D. Andrew Howell, Paolo A. Mazzali, Dale A. Frail, David Bersier, Phil A. James, C. W. Akerlof, Fang Yuan, Nicholas Law, Derek B. Fox, Neil Gehrels

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    82 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is an optical wide-field variability survey carried out using a camera with a 7.8deg2 field of view mounted on the 48 inch Oschin Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory. One of the key goals of this survey is to conduct high-cadence monitoring of the sky in order to detect optical transient sources shortly after they occur. Here, we describe the real-time capabilities of the PTF and our related rapid multiwavelength follow-up programs, extending from the radio to the γ-ray bands. We present as a case study observations of the optical transient PTF10vdl (SN 2010id), revealed to be a very young core-collapse (Type II-P) supernova having a remarkably low luminosity. Our results demonstrate that the PTF now provides for optical transients the real-time discovery and rapid-response follow-up capabilities previously reserved only for high-energy transients like gamma-ray bursts.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number159
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume736
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2011

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