A Search for Extragalactic Fast Blue Optical Transients in ZTF and the Rate of AT2018cow-like Transients

Abstract

We present a search for extragalactic fast blue optical transients (FBOTs) during Phase I of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). We identify 38 candidates with durations above half-maximum light 1 d < t1/2 < 12 d, of which 28 have blue (g-r<-0.2 mag) colors at peak light. Of the 38 transients (28 FBOTs), 19 (13) can be spectroscopically classified as core-collapse supernovae (SNe): 11 (8) H- or He-rich (Type II/IIb/Ib) SNe, 6 (4) interacting (Type IIn/Ibn) SNe, and 2 (1) H&He-poor (Type Ic/Ic-BL) SNe. Two FBOTs (published previously) had high-S/N predominantly featureless spectra and luminous radio emission: AT2018lug and AT2020xnd. Seven (five) did not have a definitive classification: AT 2020bdh showed tentative broad H$\alpha$ in emission, and AT 2020bot showed unidentified broad features and was 10 kpc offset from the center of an early-type galaxy. Ten (six) have no spectroscopic observations or redshift measurements. We present multiwavelength (radio, millimeter, and/or X-ray) observations for five FBOTs (three Type Ibn, one Type IIn/Ibn, one Type IIb). Additionally, we search radio-survey (VLA and ASKAP) data to set limits on the presence of radio emission for 22 of the transients. All X-ray and radio observations resulted in non-detections; we rule out AT2018cow-like X-ray and radio behavior for five FBOTs and more luminous emission (such as that seen in the Camel) for four additional FBOTs. We conclude that exotic transients similar to AT2018cow, the Koala, and the Camel represent a rare subset of FBOTs, and use ZTF's SN classification experiments to measure the rate to be at most 0.1% of the local core-collapse SN rate.

arXiv commentReplaced following peer-review process. 46 pages, 20 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (141)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• The Swift X-ray Telescope
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
• The Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope
• The observed properties of dwarf galaxies in and around the Local Group
• Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Methods and results of an automatic analysis of a complete sample of Swift-XRT observations of GRBs
• K-corrections and filter transformations in the ultraviolet, optical, and near infrared
• The reversal of the star formation-density relation in the distant universe
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• CIGALE: a python Code Investigating GALaxy Emission
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Data Processing, Products, and Archive
• ATLAS: A High-Cadence All-Sky Survey System
• Galaxy Luminosity Functions to z~1: DEEP2 vs. COMBO-17 and Implications for Red Galaxy Formation
• Analysis of galaxy SEDs from far-UV to far-IR with CIGALE: Studying a SINGS test sample
• An online repository of Swift/XRT light curves of GRBs
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
• Calibration of X-ray absorption in our Galaxy
• WISeREP - An Interactive Supernova Data Repository
• Initial Performance of the NEOWISE Reactivation Mission
• Galaxy Zoo 1 : Data Release of Morphological Classifications for nearly 900,000 galaxies
• Star Formation and Dust Attenuation Properties in Galaxies from a Statistical UV-to-FIR Analysis
• Nearby Supernova Rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search. III. The Rate-Size Relation, and the Rates as a Function of Galaxy Hubble Type and Colour
• Forty-Seven Milky Way-Sized, Extremely Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• The Expanded Very Large Array -- a New Telescope for New Science
• The First Systematic Study of Type Ibc Supernova Multi-band Light Curves
• A Two-Parameter Model for the Infrared/Submillimeter/Radio Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies and AGN
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Surveys and Scheduler
• Rapidly-Evolving and Luminous Transients from Pan-STARRS1
• PESSTO : survey description and products from the first data release by the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey of Transient Objects
• Design and operation of the ATLAS Transient Science Server
• unWISE: unblurred coadds of the WISE imaging
• Berkeley Supernova Ia Program I: Observations, Data Reduction, and Spectroscopic Sample of 582 Low-Redshift Type Ia Supernovae
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: Observing System
• Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder: I. System Description
• The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey I: Design and First Results
• The Zwicky Transient Facility Bright Transient Survey. II. A Public Statistical Sample for Exploring Supernova Demographics
• An embedded X-ray source shines through the aspherical AT2018cow: revealing the inner workings of the most luminous fast-evolving optical transients
• Proper image subtraction - optimal transient detection, photometry and hypothesis testing
• The Automated Palomar 60-Inch Telescope
• The SED Machine: a robotic spectrograph for fast transient classification
• Fully-Automated Reduction of Longslit Spectroscopy with the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer at Keck Observatory
• The Cow: discovery of a luminous, hot and rapidly evolving transient
• The Fast, Luminous Ultraviolet Transient AT2018cow: Extreme Supernova, or Disruption of a Star by an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole?
• Optical Spectra of 73 Stripped-Envelope Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Supernova PTF 09uj: A possible shock breakout from a dense circumstellar wind
• The Automatic Learning for the Rapid Classification of Events (ALeRCE) Alert Broker
• 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
• Real-bogus classification for the Zwicky Transient Facility using deep learning
• Rapidly evolving transients in the Dark Energy Survey
• The GROWTH Marshal: A Dynamic Science Portal for Time-Domain Astronomy
• Rapidly Rising Transients in the Supernova - Superluminous Supernova Gap
• A Fully Automated Integral Field Spectrograph Pipeline for the SEDMachine: pysedm
• Science with a wide-field UV transient explorer
• The Zwicky Transient Facility Alert Distribution System
• AT2018cow: a luminous millimeter transient
• Machine Learning for the Zwicky Transient Facility
• An Unusually Fast-Evolving Supernova
• The Palomar Transient Factory Core-Collapse Supernova Host-Galaxy Sample. I. Host-Galaxy Distribution Functions and Environment-Dependence of CCSNe
• Type Ibn Supernovae Show Photometric Homogeneity and Spectral Diversity at Maximum Light
• The Koala: A Fast Blue Optical Transient with Luminous Radio Emission from a Starburst Dwarf Galaxy at $z=0.27$
• Binospec: A Wide-field Imaging Spectrograph for the MMT
• A mildly relativistic outflow from the energetic, fast-rising blue optical transient CSS161010 in a dwarf galaxy
• VAST: An ASKAP Survey for Variables and Slow Transients
• The Fast and Furious Decay of the Peculiar Type Ic Supernova 2005ek
• The Zwicky Transient Facility Census of the Local Universe I: Systematic search for Calcium rich gap transients reveal three related spectroscopic sub-classes
• Full-depth Coadds of the WISE and First-year NEOWISE-Reactivation Images
• ZTF Early Observations of Type Ia Supernovae I: Properties of the 2018 Sample
• A Morphological Classification Model to Identify Unresolved PanSTARRS1 Sources: Application in the ZTF Real-Time Pipeline
• Transient processing and analysis using $\text{AMPEL}$: Alert Management, Photometry and Evaluation of Lightcurves
• Massive stars exploding in a He-rich circumstellar medium. II. The transitional case of SN 2005la
• Swift and Chandra Detections of Supernova 2006jc: Evidence for Interaction of the Supernova Shock with a Circumstellar Shell
• Observational properties of extreme supernovae
• Helium Emission in the Type Ic SN 1999cq
• The Nordic Optical Telescope
• Rapidly Rising Transients from Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Transient Survey
• The Type Icn SN 2021csp: Implications for the Origins of the Fastest Supernovae and the Fates of Wolf-Rayet Stars
• A Luminous, Fast Rising UV-Transient Discovered by ROTSE: a Tidal Disruption Event?
• Evidence for Late-stage Eruptive Mass-loss in the Progenitor to SN2018gep, a Broad-lined Ic Supernova: Pre-explosion Emission and a Rapidly Rising Luminous Transient
• X-ray Swift observations of SN 2018cow
• X-ray emission from supernovae in dense circumstellar matter environments: A search for collisionless shocks
• SN 2011hw: Helium-Rich Circumstellar Gas and the Luminous Blue Variable to Wolf-Rayet Transition in Supernova Progenitors
• Endurance of SN 2005ip after a decade: X-rays, radio, and H-alpha like SN 1988Z require long-lived pre-supernova mass loss
• Photometric Redshifts with the LSST: Evaluating Survey Observing Strategies
• iPTF16asu: A Luminous, Rapidly-Evolving, and High-Velocity Supernova
• SN 2019ehk: A Double-Peaked Ca-rich Transient with Luminous X-ray Emission and Shock-Ionized Spectral Features
• Census of the Local Universe (CLU) Narrow-Band Survey I: Galaxy Catalogs from Preliminary Fields
• Radio and X-ray observations of the luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient AT2020xnd
• Core-collapse, superluminous, and gamma-ray burst supernova host galaxy populations at low redshift: the importance of dwarf and starbursting galaxies
• Signatures of Circumstellar Interaction in the Unusual Transient AT2018cow
• Near-Infrared and Optical Observations of Type Ic SN2020oi and broad-lined Ic SN2020bvc: Carbon Monoxide, Dust and High-Velocity Supernova Ejecta
• SN2019dge: a Helium-rich Ultra-Stripped Envelope Supernova
• PS1-12sk is a Peculiar Supernova From a He-rich Progenitor System in a Brightest Cluster Galaxy Environment
• A fully automated data reduction pipeline for the FRODOSpec integral field spectrograph
• Luminous Millimeter, Radio, and X-ray Emission from ZTF20acigmel (AT2020xnd)
• SN 2015U: A Rapidly Evolving and Luminous Type Ibn Supernova
• Circumstellar Interaction Powers the Light Curves of Luminous Rapidly Evolving Optical Transients
• catsHTM - A tool for fast accessing and cross-matching large astronomical catalogs
• Type Ibn Supernovae May not all Come from Massive Stars
• Binospec Software System
• Constraining the Kilonova Rate with Zwicky Transient Facility Searches Independent of Gravitational Wave and Short Gamma-ray Burst Triggers
• An Emerging Class of Bright, Fast-evolving Supernovae with Low-mass Ejecta
• Optimal Classification and Outlier Detection for Stripped-Envelope Core-Collapse Supernovae
• ZTF20aajnksq (AT2020blt): A Fast Optical Transient at $z\approx 2.9$ With No Detected Gamma-Ray Burst Counterpart
• Massive stars exploding in a He-rich circumstellar medium. VI. Observations of two distant Type Ibn supernova candidates discovered by La Silla-QUEST
• Cosmological Fast Optical Transients with the Zwicky Transient Facility: A Search for Dirty Fireballs
• Type II supernovae in low luminosity host galaxies
• The Peculiar Transient AT2018cow: A Possible Origin of A Type Ibn/IIn Supernova
• The Host Galaxies of Rapidly Evolving Transients in the Dark Energy Survey
• uGMRT observations of a Fast and Blue Optical Transient -- AT 2018cow
• SN2018kzr: a rapidly declining transient from the destruction of a white dwarf
• ZTF18aalrxas: A Type IIb Supernova from a very extended low-mass progenitor
• An Early-Time Optical and Ultraviolet Excess in the type-Ic SN 2020oi
• A non-equipartition shockwave traveling in a dense circumstellar environment around SN2020oi
• Volumetric Survey Speed: A Figure of Merit for Transient Surveys
• AT 2018cow VLBI: No Long-Lived Relativistic Outflow
• Seeing-limited imaging sky surveys -- small vs. large telescopes
• Rapidly Evolving Transients from the Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP Transient Survey
• The peculiar Ca-rich SN 2019ehk: Evidence for a Type IIb core-collapse supernova from a low mass stripped progenitor
• The luminous and rapidly evolving SN 2018bcc: Clues toward the origin of Type Ibn SNe from the Zwicky Transient Facility
• SN 2018gjx reveals that some SNe Ibn are SNe IIb exploding in dense circumstellar material
• Less than 1% of Core-Collapse Supernovae in the local universe occur in elliptical galaxies
• The Most Rapidly Declining Type I Supernova 2019bkc/ATLAS19dqr
• The rise and fall of an extraordinary Ca-rich transient -- The discovery of ATLAS19dqr/SN 2019bkc
• The Exotic Type Ic Broad-Lined Supernova SN 2018gep: Blurring the Line Between Supernovae and Fast Optical Transients
• AT2018lqh and the nature of the emerging population of day-scale duration optical transients
• On the nature of Fast Blue Optical Transients
• Radiative diffusion in a time-dependent outflow: a model for fast blue optical transients
• SN 2016hil-- a Type II supernova in the remote outskirts of an elliptical host and its origin

Cited by in corpus (35)

• Sciences with the 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST)
• The Large Array Survey Telescope -- System Overview and Performances
• The broad-lined Type-Ic supernova SN 2022xxf with extraordinary two-humped light curves
• Minutes-duration Optical Flares with Supernova Luminosities
• Mass-transferring binary stars as progenitors of interacting hydrogen-free supernovae
• The Large Array Survey Telescope -- Science Goals
• Multiple Peaks and a Long Precursor in the Type IIn Supernova 2021qqp: An Energetic Explosion in a Complex Circumstellar Environment
• A cosmic formation site of silicon and sulphur revealed by a new type of supernova explosion
• High-Energy Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray-Faint Accretion-Powered Hypernebulae
• Late-time Hubble Space Telescope Observations of AT 2018cow. II. Evolution of a UV bright Underlying Source 2--4 Yr Post-discovery
• Self-consistent MHD simulation of jet launching in a neutron star - white dwarf merger
• EP241021a: a months-duration X-ray transient with luminous optical and radio emission
• Neutrinos from explosive transients at the dawn of multi-messenger astronomy
• TiDES: The 4MOST Time Domain Extragalactic Survey
• Multi-wavelength observations of the Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient AT2023fhn
• The Luminosity Phase Space of Galactic and Extragalactic X-ray Transients Out to Intermediate Redshifts
• Late-time Hubble Space Telescope Observations of AT 2018cow. I. Further Constraints on the Fading Prompt Emission and Thermal Properties 50--60 Days Post-discovery
• On the optical transients from double white-dwarf mergers
• SN 2023zaw: an ultra-stripped, nickel-poor supernova from a low-mass progenitor
• Prospects for Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Science with eXTP
• The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Flux Upper Limits from a Targeted Search for Extragalactic Transients
• IIb or not IIb: A Catalog of ZTF Kilonova Imposters
• Luminous, rapidly declining supernovae as stripped transitional objects in low metallicity environments: the case of SN 2022lxg
• The Emission and Suppression of Line Features in Luminous Transients
• Hydrodynamic Modelling of Early Peaks in Type Ibc Supernovae with Circumstellar Interaction
• Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients as "Failed" Gravitational-wave Sources: Helium Core$-$Black Hole Mergers Following Delayed Dynamical Instability
• Unveiling the nature of the Einstein Probe transient EP 241021a
• Machine-directed gravitational-wave counterpart discovery
• A Target Search for Fast Radio Bursts Associated with Two Fast Blue Optical Transients: AT2018cow and CSS161010
• Quantum Machine Learning for Identifying Transient Events in X-ray Light Curves
• Search for the Optical Counterpart of Einstein Probe Discovered Fast X-ray Transients from Lulin Observatory
• Science with a large field-of-view polarization survey: The Large Array Survey Telescope Polarization Node (LAST-P)
• AT2019ijn: a fast-rising, slow-decaying blue optical transient with exceptionally bright radio emission
• An extremely fast fading population II dwarf nova candidate: caught spectroscopically on the rise
• Radio Supernovae