Real-Time Detection and Rapid Multiwavelength Follow-up Observations of a Highly Subluminous Type II-P Supernova from the Palomar Transient Factory Survey

• Published in: arXiv.org 2011-06
• Main Authors: Gal-Yam, Avishay, Kasliwal, Mansi M, Arcavi, Iair, Green, Yoav, Yaron, Ofer, Ben-Ami, Sagi, Xu, Dong, Sternberg, Assaf, Quimby, Robert M, Kulkarni, Shrinivas R, Ofek, Eran O, Walters, Richard, Nugent, Peter E, Poznanski, Dovi, Bloom, Joshua S, S Bradley Cenko, Filippenko, Alexei V, Li, Weidong, Silverman, J, Walker, Emma S, Sullivan, Mark, Maguire, K, Howell, D Andrew, Mazzali, Paolo A, Frail, Dale A, Bersier, David, James, Phil A, Akerlof, C W, Yuan, Fang, Fox, Derek B, Law, Nicholas, Gehrels, Neil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collapse; Field of view; Gamma ray bursts; Gamma rays; Luminosity; Real time; Schmidt telescopes; Sky surveys (astronomy)
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1106.0400

The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is an optical wide-field variability survey carried out using a camera with a 7.8 square degree field of view mounted on the 48-in 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 gamma-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.