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We present multi-epoch spectropolarimetry and spectra for a sample of 14 Type IIn supernovae (SNe IIn). We find that after correcting for likely interstellar polarization, SNe IIn commonly show intrinsic continuum polarization of 1–3 per cent at the time of peak optical luminosity, although a few show weaker or negligible polarization. While some SNe IIn have even stronger polarization at early times, their polarization tends to drop smoothly over several hundred days after peak. We find a tendency for the intrinsic polarization to be stronger at bluer wavelengths, especially at early times. While polarization from an electron scattering region is expected to be grey, scattering of SN light by dusty circumstellar material (CSM) may induce such a wavelength-dependent polarization. For most SNe IIn, changes in polarization degree and wavelength dependence are not accompanied by changes in the position angle, requiring that asymmetric pre-SN mass loss had a persistent geometry. While 2–3 per cent polarization is typical, about 30 per cent of SNe IIn have very low or undetected polarization. Under the simplifying assumption that all SN IIn progenitors have axisymmetric CSM (i.e. disc/torus/bipolar), then the distribution of polarization values we observe is consistent with similarly asymmetric CSM seen from a distribution of random viewing angles. This asymmetry has very important implications for understanding the origin of pre-SN mass loss in SNe IIn, suggesting that it was shaped by binary interaction.

We present multi-epoch spectropolarimetry of Type IIn supernova SN2017hcc, 16–391 d after explosion. Continuum polarization up to 6 per cent is observed during the first epoch, making SN 2017hcc the most intrinsically polarized SN ever reported at visible wavelengths. During the first 29 d, when the polarization is strongest, the continuum polarization exhibits wavelength dependence that rises toward the blue, then becomes wavelength independent by day 45. The polarization drops rapidly during the first month, even as the flux is still climbing to peak brightness. None the less, unusually high polarization is maintained until day 68, at which point the polarization declines to levels comparable to those of previous well-studied SNe IIn. Only minor changes in position angle (PA) are measured throughout the evolution. The blue slope of the polarized continuum and polarized line emission during the first month suggests that an aspherical distribution of dust grains in pre-shock circumstellar material (CSM) is echoing the SN IIn spectrum and strongly influencing the polarization, while the subsequent decline during the wavelength-independent phase appears consistent with electron scattering near the SN/CSM interface. The persistence of the PA between these two phases suggests that the pre-existing CSM responsible for the dust scattering at early times is part of the same geometric structure as the electron-scattering region that dominates the polarization at later times. SN 2017hcc appears to be yet another, but more extreme, case of aspherical yet well-ordered CSM in Type IIn SNe, possibly resulting from pre-SN mass-loss shaped by a binary progenitor system.

We present deep, nebular-phase spectropolarimetry of the Type II-P/L SN 2013ej, obtained 167 days after explosion with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The polarized flux spectrum appears as a nearly perfect (92% correlation), redshifted (by ∼4000 km s⁻¹) replica of the total flux spectrum. Such a striking correspondence has never been observed before in nebular-phase supernova spectropolarimetry, although data capable of revealing it have heretofore been only rarely obtained. Through comparison with 2D polarized radiative transfer simulations of stellar explosions, we demonstrate that localized ionization produced by the decay of a high-velocity, spatially confined clump of radioactive⁵⁶Ni—synthesized by and launched as part of the explosion with final radial velocity exceeding 4500 km s⁻¹—can reproduce the observations through enhanced electron scattering. Additional data taken earlier in the nebular phase (day 134) yield a similarly strong correlation (84%) and redshift, whereas photospheric-phase epochs that sample days 8 through 97 do not. This suggests that the primary polarization signatures of the high-velocity scattering source only come to dominate once the thick, initially opaque hydrogen envelope has turned sufficiently transparent. This detection in an otherwise fairly typical core-collapse supernova adds to the growing body of evidence supporting strong asymmetries across nature’s most common types of stellar explosions, and establishes the power of polarized flux—and the specific information encoded by it in line photons at nebular epochs—as a vital tool in such investigations going forward.

We report the detection of very high energy gamma-ray emission from the blazar S3 1227+25 (VER J1230+253) with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS). VERITAS observations of the source were triggered by the detection of a hard-spectrum GeV flare on 2015 May 15 with the Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT). A combined 5 hr VERITAS exposure on May 16 and 18 resulted in a strong 13σdetection with a differential photon spectral index, Γ = 3.8 ± 0.4, and a flux level at 9% of the Crab Nebula above 120 GeV. This also triggered target-of-opportunity observations with Swift, optical photometry, polarimetry, and radio measurements, also presented in this work, in addition to the VERITAS and Fermi-LAT data. A temporal analysis of the gamma-ray flux during this period finds evidence of a shortest variability timescale ofτ_obs= 6.2 ± 0.9 hr, indicating emission from compact regions within the jet, and the combined gamma-ray spectrum shows no strong evidence of a spectral cutoff. An investigation into correlations between the multiwavelength observations found evidence of optical and gamma-ray correlations, suggesting a single-zone model of emission. Finally, the multiwavelength spectral energy distribution is well described by a simple one-zone leptonic synchrotron self-Compton radiation model.