Ragnhil Lunnan will talk about: "Superluminous Supernovae from Pan-STARRS and PTF".
Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a rare class of stellar explosions discovered by wide-field optical transient surveys in the past decade. They are characterized by
peak luminosities 10-100 times that of ordinary core-collapse and Type Ia SNe, requiring either an additional energy source beyond Ni decay or an exotic explosion
mechanism. In this talk, I will give an overview of SLSN observations and modeling, and highlight recent results from the Pan-STARRS Medium Deep Survey and the Palomar
Transient Factory.