Superluminous Supernovae in Extreme Emission Line Galaxies

by Giorgos Leloudas (DARK Cosmology Institute (Copenhagen) & Weizmann Institute (Israel))

Friday 27 Feb 2015, 10:30 → 11:30 Europe/Stockholm

FB42

Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are very luminous stellar explosions that were discovered relatively recently. I will first give a brief introduction to SLSNe, their classification scheme, their observables, and the models that have been proposed to explain them. Subsequently, I will present SUSHIES, a program to study the host galaxies of SLSNe with the aim to better understand their progenitors. We have found that H-rich SLSNe are found in different environments than H-poor SLSNe: more metal-rich, more massive and with softer radiation fields. Interestingly, H-poor SLSNe are often (50% in our sample) found in extreme emission line galaxies. We propose that H-poor SLSNe result from the first wave of stars that explode in very young starbursts.