PTF discovery of PTF10jop, a strongly interacting supernova
ATel #2676; S. B. Cenko, J. M. Silverman, A. V. Filippenko, J. S. Bloom, A. A. Miller (UC Berkeley), D. Poznanski, P. E. Nugent (LBNL), M. M. Kasliwal, R. M. Quimby, E. O. Ofek, S. R. Kulkarni (Caltech), A. Gal-Yam, I. Arcavi, D. Xu (Weizmann Institute of Science), N. M. Law (U. Toronto), R. G. Dekany, G. Rahmer, David Hale, R. Smith, J. Zolkower, V. Velur, R. Walters, J. Henning, K. Bui, D. McKenna (Caltech), and J. Jacobsen (LBNL), on behalf of the Core-Collapse working group of the Palomar Transient Factory (ATEL #1964):
on 15 Jun 2010; 18:12 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: S. Bradley Cenko (cenko@astro.berkeley.edu)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae
The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF; http://www.astro.caltech.edu/ptf/ ; ATEL #1964) reports the discovery of a new supernova, PTF10jop. The supernova was discovered and classified by Oarical, an autonomous software framework of the PTF collaboration, on Jun 6.46 UT at RA (J2000) = 21:29:31.42, Dec (J2000) = +02:52:46.4, at an R-band magnitude of 18.8 (calibrated with respect to the USNO-B1 catalog) in the host galaxy 2MASX J21293125+0252516. No source was detected at this location in a series of previous visits in 2009 to a limiting magnitude of R > 21.0. A spectrum was obtained using the DEep Imaging Multi-Object
Spectrograph (DEIMOS; Faber et al., 2003, SPIE 4841, 1657) on the Keck II telescope on Jun 11.60 UT. The spectrum exhibits broad (~10,000 km/s) H-alpha, H-beta, and the Ca near-IR triplet in emission. The Balmer series also exhibits a redshifted intermediate-width component in emission and a narrow P Cygni-like absorption profile. Overall the spectrum exhibits a number of similarities with late-time spectra of SN 1997cy (Germany et al., 2000, ApJ 533, 320; Turatto et al., 2000, ApJ, 534, L57) and SN 1999E (Rigon et al., 2003, MNRAS 340, 191), which might be Type Ia supernovae that occurred within a dense circumstellar medium (e.g., Hamuy et al., 2003, Nature, 421, 651; Deng et al., 2004, ApJ, 605, L37; but for a different interpretation, see Benetti et al., 2006, 653, L129). However, the spectrum also resembles the late-time spectra of some more normal, though strongly interacting, Type IIn supernovae such as SN 1988Z and SN 1994Y (e.g., Filippenko, 1997, ARAA, 35, 309).
