Supernova SN 2020faa -- an iPTF14hls look-alike?

Abstract

We present observations of SN 2020faa. This Type II supernova displays a luminous light curve that started to rebrighten from an initial decline. We investigate this in relation to the famous supernova iPTF14hls, which received a lot of attention and multiple interpretations in the literature, however whose nature and source of energy still remains unknown. We demonstrate the great similarity between SN 2020faa and iPTF14hls during the first 6 months, and use this comparison both to forecast the evolution of SN 2020faa and to reflect on the less well observed early evolution of iPTF14hls. We present and analyse our observational data, consisting mainly of optical light curves from the Zwicky Transient Facility in the gri bands as well as a sequence of optical spectra. We construct colour curves, a bolometric light curve, compare ejecta-velocity and Black-body radius evolutions for the two supernovae, as well as for more typical Type II supernovae. The light curves show a great similarity with those of iPTF14hls over the first 6 months, in luminosity, timescale and colours. Also the spectral evolution of SN 2020faa is that of a Type II supernova, although it probes earlier epochs than those available for iPTF14hls. The similar light curve behaviour is suggestive of SN 2020faa being a new iPTF14hls. We present these observations now to advocate follow-up observations, since most of the more striking evolution of supernova iPTF14hls came later, with light curve undulations and a spectacular longevity. On the other hand, for SN 2020faa we have better constraints on the explosion epoch than we had for iPTF14hls, and we have been able to spectroscopically monitor it from earlier phases than was done for the more famous sibling.

arXiv comment14 pages, 12 figures, submitted to A&A

References in corpus (46)

• The chemical composition of the Sun
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Swift X-ray Telescope
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
• The Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope
• The propagation of uncertainties in stellar population synthesis modeling I: The relevance of uncertain aspects of stellar evolution and the IMF to the derived physical properties of galaxies
• [O III]/[N II] as an Abundance Indicator at High Redshift
• Methods and results of an automatic analysis of a complete sample of Swift-XRT observations of GRBs
• HI4PI: A full-sky HI survey based on EBHIS and GASS
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Data Processing, Products, and Archive
• The Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
• An online repository of Swift/XRT light curves of GRBs
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
• WISeREP - An Interactive Supernova Data Repository
• Initial Performance of the NEOWISE Reactivation Mission
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation with the Direct Method on Stacked Spectra of SDSS Galaxies
• Deriving Physical Properties from Broadband Photometry with Prospector: Description of the Model and a Demonstration of its Accuracy Using 129 Galaxies in the Local Universe
• Nebular Continuum and Line Emission in Stellar Population Synthesis Models
• unWISE: unblurred coadds of the WISE imaging
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Observing System
• Chemical abundances in high-redshift galaxies: A powerful new emission line diagnostic
• The Automated Palomar 60-Inch Telescope
• The SED Machine: a robotic spectrograph for fast transient classification
• Gemini Spectroscopy of Supernovae from SNLS: Improving High Redshift SN Selection and Classification
• The first month of evolution of the slow rising type II-P SN 2013ej in M74
• PTF12os and iPTF13bvn. Two stripped-envelope supernovae from low-mass progenitors in NGC 5806
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Accurate Panchromatic Photometry from Optical Priors using LAMBDAR
• The GROWTH Marshal: A Dynamic Science Portal for Time-Domain Astronomy
• Energetic eruptions leading to a peculiar hydrogen-rich explosion of a massive star
• A Fully Automated Integral Field Spectrograph Pipeline for the SEDMachine: pysedm
• Full-depth Coadds of the WISE and First-year NEOWISE-Reactivation Images
• Explosion Energies, Nickel Masses, and Distances of Supernovae of Type IIP
• Strong late-time circumstellar interaction in the peculiar supernova iPTF14hls
• Explaining iPTF14hls as a common envelope jets supernova
• Census of the Local Universe (CLU) Narrow-Band Survey I: Galaxy Catalogs from Preliminary Fields
• Supernova Photometric Classification Pipelines Trained on Spectroscopically Classified Supernovae from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium-Deep Survey
• Models for the Unusual Supernova iPTF14hls
• Two stripped envelope supernovae with circumstellar interaction -- but only one really shows it
• A magnetar model for the hydrogen-rich super-luminous supernova iPTF14hls
• Late-time observations of the extraordinary Type II supernova iPTF14hls
• A fallback accretion model for the unusual type II-P supernova iPTF14hls
• Extraordinary supernova iPTF14hls: An attempt at interpretation

Cited by in corpus (18)

• The role of jets in exploding supernovae and in shaping their remnants
• Seven years of coordinated Chandra-NuSTAR observations of SN2014C unfold the extreme mass-loss history of its stellar progenitor
• Common envelope jets supernovae with a black hole companion as possible high energy neutrino sources
• A common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) impostor scenario for fast blue optical transients
• Three-dimensional simulations of the jet feedback mechanism in common envelope jets supernova
• Double common envelope jets supernovae (CEJSNe) by triple-star systems
• Supernovae double-peaked light curves from double-nickel distribution
• Binary neutron star merger in common envelope jet supernovae
• iPTF14hls in the circumstellar medium interaction model: A promising candidate for a pulsational pair-instability supernova
• Optical Rebrightening of Extragalactic Transients from the Zwicky Transient Facility
• Simulating the deposition of angular momentum by jets in common envelope evolution
• Hidden shock powering the peak of SN 2020faa
• Terminating a common envelope jets supernova impostor event with a super-Eddington blue supergiant
• A Physical Model of Delayed Rebrightenings in Shock-interacting Supernovae without Narrow Line Emission
• ZTF-observed late-time signals of pre-ZTF transients
• The story of SN 2021aatd -- a peculiar 1987A-like supernova with an early-phase luminosity excess
• Physical properties of long-rising type II supernovae -- Bayesian analytic modeling and spectrophotometric correlations
• Search for the Optical Counterpart of Einstein Probe Discovered Fast X-ray Transients from Lulin Observatory