Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

CfAIR2: Near-infrared Light Curves of 94 Type Ia Supernovae

CfAIR2 is a large, homogeneously reduced set of near-infrared (NIR) light curves (LCs) for Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained with the 1.3 m Peters Automated InfraRed Imaging TELescope. This data set includes 4637 measurements of 94 SNe Ia and 4 …

The Detection of a Type IIn Supernova in Optical Follow-up Observations of IceCube Neutrino Events

The IceCube neutrino observatory pursues a follow-up program selecting interesting neutrino events in real-time and issuing alerts for electromagnetic follow-up observations. In 2012 March, the most significant neutrino alert during the first three …

Strong near-infrared carbon in the Type Ia supernova iPTF13ebh

We present near-infrared (NIR) time-series spectroscopy, as well as complementary ultraviolet (UV), optical, and NIR data, of the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) iPTF13ebh, which was discovered within two days from the estimated time of explosion. The …

A detailed study of the optical attenuation of gamma-ray bursts in the Swift era

We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) photometry of 28 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Swift satellite and rapidly observed by the Reionization and Transients Infrared/Optical (RATIR) camera. We compare the optical flux at fiducial times …

iPTF14yb: The First Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Independent of a High-energy Trigger

We report here the discovery by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) of iPTF14yb, a luminous (M$_r$≈ -27.8 mag), cosmological (redshift 1.9733), rapidly fading optical transient. We demonstrate, based on probabilistic arguments and a …

Slow-speed Supernovae from the Palomar Transient Factory: Two Channels

Since the discovery of the unusual prototype SN 2002cx, the eponymous class of Type I (hydrogen-poor) supernovae with low ejecta speeds has grown to include approximately two dozen members identified from several heterogeneous surveys, in some cases …

A Continuum of H- to He-rich Tidal Disruption Candidates With a Preference for E+A Galaxies

We present the results of a Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) archival search for blue transients that lie in the magnitude range between ``normal'' core-collapse and superluminous supernovae (i.e., with -21 <= M $_ R (peak)$ <= - 19). Of the six …

A trio of gamma-ray burst supernovae:. GRB 120729A, GRB 130215A/SN 2013ez, and GRB 130831A/SN 2013fu

We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) photometry for three gamma- ray burst supernovae (GRB-SNe): GRB 120729A, GRB 130215A/SN 2013ez, and GRB 130831A/SN 2013fu. For GRB 130215A/SN 2013ez, we also present optical spectroscopy at t - t$_0$ = 16.1 …

Multi-color Optical and Near-infrared Light Curves of 64 Stripped-envelope Core-Collapse Supernovae

We present a densely sampled, homogeneous set of light curves of 64 low- redshift (z <åisebox-0.5ex 0.05) stripped-envelope supernovae (SNe of Type IIb, Ib, Ic, and Ic- BL). These data were obtained between 2001 and 2009 at the Fred L. Whipple …

Optical follow-up observations of PTF10qts, a luminous broad-lined Type Ic supernova found by the Palomar Transient Factory

We present optical photometry and spectroscopy of the broad-lined Type Ic supernova (SN Ic-BL) PTF10qts, which was discovered as part of the Palomar Transient Factory. The SN was located in a dwarf galaxy of magnitude r = 21.1 at a redshift z = …