Palomar Transient Factory Discovers Another Possible super-Chandrasekhar Type Ia Supernova
ATel #2917; P. E. Nugent (LBNL), D. A. Howell (LCOGT/UCSB), M. Sullivan (Oxford), N. Suzuki (LBNL), A. Cucchiara , J. Botyanszki(LBNL / UC Berkeley), E. Y. Hsiao (LBNL)
on 10 Oct 2010; 23:15 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Supernovae
Credential Certification: Eric Y. Hsiao (ehsiao@lbl.gov)
Subjects: Optical, Supernovae
The Type Ia supernova science working group of the Palomar Transient Factory (ATEL#1964) reports the discovery of a possible super-Chandrasekhar mass supernova, PTF10xgx. The supernova is at RA = 00:12:23.15, Dec = +02:30:44.1 (J2000) in the galaxy identified as APMUKS(BJ) B000949.39+021401.7 (Maddox et al. 1990, MNRAS, 243, 692). The supernova was discovered and classified by Oarical, an autonomous software framework of the PTF collaboration, based on observations made with the Palomar 48-inch Oschin Schmidt telescope. The discovery date was September 19 UT when it was at magnitude 19.8 in R-band (calibrated wrt the USNO catalog). There was nothing at this location on September 14 UT to a limiting magnitude of 21.3. A CCD spectrum (range 340-1000 nm), obtained on October 10 UT with the 3-m Shane reflector (+Kast) at Lick Observatory shows this to be a Type Ia supernova approximately a week past maximum. Several spectral features resemble those of SN2003fg (Howell et al. 2006, Nature, 443, 308), which has been proposed to be a super-Chandrasekhar mass explosion. A redshift of z=0.14 obtained from the supernova spectrum suggests an absolute magnitude of approximately -20.
