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A search for transients in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS): three new supernovae

Golubchik, Miriam; Zitrin, Adi; Pierel, Justin; Furtak, Lukas J; Meena, Ashish K; Graur, Or; Kelly, Patrick L; Coe, Dan; Andrade-Santos, Felipe; Asif, Maor; Bradley, Larry D; Chen, Wenlei; Frye, Brenda L; Gomez, Sebastian; Jha, Saurabh; Mahler, Guillaume; Nonino, Mario; Strolger, Louis-Gregory; Su, Yuanyuan

A search for transients in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS): three new supernovae Thumbnail


Authors

Miriam Golubchik

Adi Zitrin

Justin Pierel

Lukas J Furtak

Ashish K Meena

Or Graur

Patrick L Kelly

Dan Coe

Felipe Andrade-Santos

Maor Asif

Larry D Bradley

Wenlei Chen

Brenda L Frye

Sebastian Gomez

Saurabh Jha

Mario Nonino

Louis-Gregory Strolger

Yuanyuan Su



Abstract

The Reionization Cluster Survey imaged 41 galaxy clusters with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), in order to detect lensed and high-redshift galaxies. Each cluster was imaged to about 26.5 AB mag in three optical and four near-infrared bands, taken in two distinct visits separated by varying time intervals. We make use of the multiple near-infrared epochs to search for transient sources in the cluster fields, with the primary motivation of building statistics for bright caustic crossing events in gravitational arcs. Over the whole sample, we do not find any significant (≳5σ) caustic crossing events, in line with expectations from semi-analytical calculations but in contrast to what may be naively expected from previous detections of some bright events or from deeper transient surveys that do find high rates of such events. Nevertheless, we find six prominent supernova (SN) candidates over the 41 fields: three of them were previously reported and three are new ones reported here for the first time. Out of the six candidates, four are likely core-collapse SNe – three in cluster galaxies, and among which only one was known before, and one slightly behind the cluster at z ∼ 0.6–0.7. The other two are likely Ia – both of them previously known, one probably in a cluster galaxy and one behind it at z ≃ 2. Our study supplies empirical bounds for the rate of caustic crossing events in galaxy cluster fields to typical HST magnitudes, and lays the groundwork for a future SN rate study.

Citation

Golubchik, M., Zitrin, A., Pierel, J., Furtak, L. J., Meena, A. K., Graur, O., …Su, Y. (2023). A search for transients in the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS): three new supernovae. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 522(3), 4718–4727. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1238

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 19, 2023
Online Publication Date Apr 26, 2023
Publication Date 2023-07
Deposit Date Jan 31, 2024
Publicly Available Date Jan 31, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 522
Issue 3
Pages 4718–4727
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1238
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2188162
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1238

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Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Author(s)
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society





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