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Published September 1, 2018 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Results from a Systematic Survey of X-Ray Emission from Hydrogen-poor Superluminous SNe

Abstract

We present the results from a sensitive X-ray survey of 26 nearby hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) with Swift, Chandra, and XMM. This data set constrains the SLSN evolution from a few days until ~2000 days after explosion, reaching a luminosity limit L x ~ 10^(40) erg s^(−1) and revealing the presence of significant X-ray emission possibly associated with PTF 12dam. No SLSN-I is detected above L_x ~ 10^(41) erg s^(-1), suggesting that the luminous X-ray emission L_x ~ 10^(45) erg s^(−1) associated with SCP 60F6 is not common among SLSNe-I. We constrain the presence of off-axis gamma-ray burst (GRB) jets, ionization breakouts from magnetar engines and the density in the sub-parsec environments of SLSNe-I through inverse Compton emission. The deepest limits rule out the weakest uncollimated GRB outflows, suggesting that if the similarity of SLSNe-I with GRB/SNe extends to their fastest ejecta, then SLSNe-I are either powered by energetic jets pointed far away from our line of sight (θ > 30°), or harbor failed jets that do not successfully break through the stellar envelope. Furthermore, if a magnetar central engine is responsible for the exceptional luminosity of SLSNe-I, our X-ray analysis favors large magnetic fields B > 2 x 10^(14) G and ejecta masses M_(ej) > 3 M_⊙, in agreement with optical/UV studies. Finally, we constrain the pre-explosion mass-loss rate of stellar progenitors of SLSNe-I. For PTF 12dam we infer Ṁ < 2 x 10^(-5) M_⊙ yr^(-1), suggesting that the SN shock interaction with an extended circumstellar medium is unlikely to supply the main source of energy powering the optical transient and that some SLSN-I progenitors end their lives as compact stars surrounded by a low-density medium similar to long GRBs and type Ib/c SNe.

Additional Information

© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 April 18; revised 2018 June 23; accepted 2018 June 27; published 2018 August 29. We thank the referee for constructive criticism and suggestions that helped improve the quality of the paper and the clarity of presentation of our results. We thank A. Kann, K. Murase, and N. Soker for their comments and detailed reading of the manuscript that we posted on the archive. This research has made use of the XRT Data Analysis Software (XRTDAS) developed under the responsibility of the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC), Italy. We acknowledge the use of public data from the Swift data archive. This work is partially based on data acquired with the Swift GO program 1114109 (PI Margutti). The scientific results reported in this article are partially based on observations made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory under program GO6-17052A (PI Margutti), observation IDs 17879, 17880, 17881, 17882, and IDs 13772, 14444, 14446 for PI Pooley. This work is partially based on observations by XMM-Newton, IDs 0743110301, 0743110701, 0770380201, 0770380401 (PI Margutti, proposal 74311). D.C. and R.M. acknowledge partial support from programs No. NNX16AT51G and NNX16AT81G provided by NASA through Swift Guest Investigator Programs. C.G. acknowledges University of Ferrara for use of the local HPC facility co-funded by the "Large-Scale Facilities 2010" project (grant 7746/2011). Development of the Boxfit code was supported in part by NASA through grant NNX10AF62G issued through the Astrophysics Theory Program and by the NSF through grant AST-1009863. Simulations for BOXFIT version 2 have been carried out in part on the computing facilities of the Computational Center for Particle and Astrophysics (C2PAP) of the research cooperation "Excellence Cluster Universe" in Garching, Germany. G.M. acknowledges the financial support from the UnivEarthS Labex program of Sorbonne Paris Cité (ANR10LABX0023 and ANR11IDEX000502).

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Published - Margutti_2018_ApJ_864_45.pdf

Submitted - 1704.05865

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August 21, 2023
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