Context. Recent developments in time domain astronomy, such as Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), have made it possible to conduct daily scans of the entire visible sky, leading to the discovery of hundreds of new transients every night. Among these detections, 10 to 15 of these objects are supernovae (SNe), which have to be classified prior to cosmological use. The spectral energy distribution machine (SEDM) is a low-resolution ( ℛ ~ 100) integral field spectrograph designed, built, and operated with the aim of spectroscopically observing and classifying targets detected by the ZTF main camera. Aims. As the current pysedm pipeline can only handle isolated point sources, it is limited by contamination when the transient is too close to its host galaxy core. This can lead to an incorrect typing and ultimately bias the cosmological analyses, affecting the homogeneity of the SN sample in terms of local environment properties. We present a new scene modeler to extract the transient spectrum from its structured background, with the aim of improving the typing efficiency of the SEDM. Methods. H yper G al is a fully chromatic scene modeler that uses archival pre-transient photometric images of the SN environment to generate a hyperspectral model of the host galaxy. It is based on the cigale SED fitter used as a physically-motivated spectral interpolator. The galaxy model, complemented by a point source for the transient and a diffuse background component, is projected onto the SEDM spectro-spatial observation space and adjusted to observations, and the SN spectrum is ultimately extracted from this multi-component model. The full procedure, from scene modeling to transient spectrum extraction and typing, is validated on 5000 simulated cubes built from actual SEDM observations of isolated host galaxies, covering a broad range of observing conditions and scene parameters. Results. We introduce the contrast, c , as the transient-to-total flux ratio at the SN location, integrated over the ZTF r -band. From estimated contrast distribution of real SEDm observations, we show that H yper G al correctly classifies ~95% of SNe Ia, and up to 99% for contrast c ≳ 0.2, representing more than 90% of the observations. Compared to the standard point-source extraction method (without the hyperspectral galaxy modeling step), H yper G al correctly classifies 20% more SNe Ia between 0.1 < c < 0.6 (50% of the observation conditions), with less than 5% of SN Ia misidentifications. The false-positive rate is less than 2% for c > 0.1 (> 99% of the observations), which represents half as much as the standard extraction method. Assuming a similar contrast distribution for core-collapse SNe, H yper G al classifies 14% additional SNe II and 11% additional SNe Ibc. Conclusions. H yper G al has proven to be extremely effective in extracting and classifying SNe in the presence of strong contamination by the host galaxy, providing a significant improvement with respect to the single point-source extraction.
more »
« less
Needle in a Haystack: Finding Supermassive Black Hole-related Flares in the Zwicky Transient Facility Public Survey
Transient accretion events onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs), such as tidal disruption events (TDEs), Bowen Fluorescence Flares (BFFs), and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which are accompanied by sudden increases of activity, offer a new window onto the SMBH population, accretion physics, and stellar dynamics in galaxy centers. However, such transients are rare and finding them in wide-field transient surveys is challenging. Here we present the results of a systematic real-time search for SMBH-related transients in Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) public alerts, using various search queries. We examined 345 rising events coincident with a galaxy nucleus, with no history of previous activity, of which 223 were spectroscopically classified. Of those, five (2.2%) were TDEs, one (0.5%) was a BFF, and two (0.9%) were AGN flares. Limiting the search to blue events, the fraction of TDEs nearly doubles to 4.1%, and no TDEs are missed. Limiting the search further to candidate post-starburst galaxies increases the relative number of TDEs to 16.7%, but the absolute numbers in such a search are small. The main contamination source is supernovae (95.1% of classified events), of which the majority (82.2% of supernovae) are of Type Ia. In a comparison set of 39 events with limited photometric history, the AGN contamination increases to ∼30%. Host galaxy offset is not a significant discriminant of TDEs in current ZTF data, but might be useful in higher-resolution data. Our results can be used to quantify the efficiency of various SMBH-related transient search strategies in optical surveys such as ZTF and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10471726
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 957
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 57
- Size(s):
- ["Article No. 57"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
more » « less
ABSTRACT The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) performs a systematic neutrino follow-up programme, searching for optical counterparts to high-energy neutrinos with dedicated Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) observations. Since first light in March 2018, ZTF has taken prompt observations for 24 high-quality neutrino alerts from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, with a median latency of 12.2 h from initial neutrino detection. From two of these campaigns, we have already reported tidal disruption event (TDE) AT 2019dsg and likely TDE AT 2019fdr as probable counterparts, suggesting that TDEs contribute >7.8 per cent of the astrophysical neutrino flux. We here present the full results of our programme through to December 2021. No additional candidate neutrino sources were identified by our programme, allowing us to place the first constraints on the underlying optical luminosity function of astrophysical neutrino sources. Transients with optical absolutes magnitudes brighter that −21 can contribute no more than 87 per cent of the total, while transients brighter than −22 can contribute no more than 58 per cent of the total, neglecting the effect of extinction and assuming they follow the star formation rate. These are the first observational constraints on the neutrino emission of bright populations such as superluminous supernovae. None of the neutrinos were coincident with bright optical AGN flares comparable to that observed for TXS 0506+056/IC170922A, with such optical blazar flares producing no more than 26 per cent of the total neutrino flux. We highlight the outlook for electromagnetic neutrino follow-up programmes, including the expected potential for the Rubin Observatory.
-
Abstract We present the Young Supernova Experiment Data Release 1 (YSE DR1), comprised of processed multicolor PanSTARRS1 griz and Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) gr photometry of 1975 transients with host–galaxy associations, redshifts, spectroscopic and/or photometric classifications, and additional data products from 2019 November 24 to 2021 December 20. YSE DR1 spans discoveries and observations from young and fast-rising supernovae (SNe) to transients that persist for over a year, with a redshift distribution reaching z ≈ 0.5. We present relative SN rates from YSE’s magnitude- and volume-limited surveys, which are consistent with previously published values within estimated uncertainties for untargeted surveys. We combine YSE and ZTF data, and create multisurvey SN simulations to train the ParSNIP and SuperRAENN photometric classification algorithms; when validating our ParSNIP classifier on 472 spectroscopically classified YSE DR1 SNe, we achieve 82% accuracy across three SN classes (SNe Ia, II, Ib/Ic) and 90% accuracy across two SN classes (SNe Ia, core-collapse SNe). Our classifier performs particularly well on SNe Ia, with high (>90%) individual completeness and purity, which will help build an anchor photometric SNe Ia sample for cosmology. We then use our photometric classifier to characterize our photometric sample of 1483 SNe, labeling 1048 (∼71%) SNe Ia, 339 (∼23%) SNe II, and 96 (∼6%) SNe Ib/Ic. YSE DR1 provides a training ground for building discovery, anomaly detection, and classification algorithms, performing cosmological analyses, understanding the nature of red and rare transients, exploring tidal disruption events and nuclear variability, and preparing for the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time.more » « less
-
more » « less
ABSTRACT We have performed targeted searches of known extragalactic transient events at millimetre wavelengths using nine seasons (2013–2021) of 98, 150, and 229 GHz Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) observations that mapped ∼40 per cent of the sky for most of the data volume. Our data cover 88 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), 12 tidal disruption events (TDEs), and 203 other transients, including supernovae (SNe). We stack our ACT observations to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the maps. In all cases but one, we do not detect these transients in the ACT data. The single candidate detection (event AT2019ppm), seen at ∼5σ significance in our data, appears to be due to active galactic nuclei activity in the host galaxy coincident with a transient alert. For each source in our search we provide flux upper limits. For example, the medians for the 95 per cent confidence upper limits at 98 GHz are 15, 18, and 16 mJy for GRBs, SNe, and TDEs, respectively, in the first month after discovery. The projected sensitivity of future wide-area cosmic microwave background surveys should be sufficient to detect many of these events using the methods described in this paper.
-
more » « less
Abstract Roughly half of the quasiperiodic eruption (QPE) sources in galactic nuclei exhibit a remarkably regular alternating “long-short” pattern of recurrence times between consecutive flares. We show that a main-sequence star (brought into the nucleus as an extreme mass-ratio inspiral; EMRI) that passes twice per orbit through the accretion disk of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) on a mildly eccentric inclined orbit, each time shocking and ejecting optically thick gas clouds above and below the midplane, naturally reproduces observed properties of QPE flares. Inefficient photon production in the ejecta renders the QPE emission much harder than the blackbody temperature, enabling the flares to stick out from the softer quiescent disk spectrum. Destruction of the star via mass ablation limits the QPE lifetime to decades, precluding a long-lived AGN as the gaseous disk. By contrast, a tidal disruption event (TDE) naturally provides a transient gaseous disk on the requisite radial scale, with a rate exceeding the EMRI inward migration rate, suggesting that many TDEs should host a QPE. This picture is consistent with the X-ray TDE observed several years prior to the QPE appearance from GSN 069. Remarkably, a second TDE-like flare was observed from this event, starting immediately after detectable QPE activity ceased; this event could plausibly result from the (partial or complete) destruction of the QPE-generating star triggered by runaway mass loss, though other explanations cannot be excluded. Our model can also be applied to black hole–disk collisions, such as those invoked in the context of the candidate SMBH binary OJ 287.
