The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey

P. Wiseman; M. Pursiainen; M. Childress; E. Swann; M. Smith; L. Galbany; C. Lidman; T. M. Davis; C. P. Gutiérrez; A. Möller; B. P. Thomas; C. Frohmaier; R. J. Foley; S. R. Hinton; L. Kelsey; R. Kessler; G. F. Lewis; M. Sako; D. Scolnic; M. Sullivan; M. Vincenzi; T. M.C. Abbott; M. Aguena; S. Allam; J. Annis; E. Bertin; S. Bhargava; D. Brooks; D. L. Burke; A. Carnero Rosell; D. Carollo; M. Carrasco Kind; J. Carretero; M. Costanzi; L. N. da Costa; H. T. Diehl; P. Doel; S. Everett; P. Fosalba; J. Frieman; J. García-Bellido; E. Gaztanaga; K. Glazebrook; D. Gruen; R. A. Gruendl; J. Gschwend; G. Gutierrez; D. L. Hollowood; K. Honscheid; D. J. James; K. Kuehn; N. Kuropatkin; M. Lima; M. A.G. Maia; J. L. Marshall; P. Martini; F. Menanteau; R. Miquel; A. Palmese; F. Paz-Chinchón; A. A. Plazas; A. K. Romer; E. Sanchez; V. Scarpine; M. Schubnell; S. Serrano; I. Sevilla-Noarbe; N. E. Sommer; E. Suchyta; M. E.C. Swanson; G. Tarle; B. E. Tucker; D. L. Tucker; T. N. Varga; A. R. Walker

doi:10.1093/mnras/staa2474

The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey

P. Wiseman, M. Pursiainen, M. Childress, E. Swann, M. Smith, L. Galbany, C. Lidman, T. M. Davis, C. P. Gutiérrez, A. Möller, B. P. Thomas, C. Frohmaier, R. J. Foley, S. R. Hinton, L. Kelsey, R. Kessler, G. F. Lewis, M. Sako, D. Scolnic, M. SullivanM. Vincenzi, T. M.C. Abbott, M. Aguena, S. Allam, J. Annis, E. Bertin, S. Bhargava, D. Brooks, D. L. Burke, A. Carnero Rosell, D. Carollo, M. Carrasco Kind, J. Carretero, M. Costanzi, L. N. da Costa, H. T. Diehl, P. Doel, S. Everett, P. Fosalba, J. Frieman, J. García-Bellido, E. Gaztanaga, K. Glazebrook, D. Gruen, R. A. Gruendl, J. Gschwend, G. Gutierrez, D. L. Hollowood, K. Honscheid, D. J. James, K. Kuehn, N. Kuropatkin, M. Lima, M. A.G. Maia, J. L. Marshall, P. Martini, F. Menanteau, R. Miquel, A. Palmese, F. Paz-Chinchón, A. A. Plazas, A. K. Romer, E. Sanchez, V. Scarpine, M. Schubnell, S. Serrano, I. Sevilla-Noarbe, N. E. Sommer, E. Suchyta, M. E.C. Swanson, G. Tarle, B. E. Tucker, D. L. Tucker, T. N. Varga, A. R. Walker

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Rapidly evolving transients (RETs), also termed fast blue optical transients, are a recently discovered group of astrophysical events that display rapid luminosity evolution. RETs typically rise to peak in less than 10 d and fade within 30, a time-scale unlikely to be compatible with the decay of Nickel-56 that drives conventional supernovae (SNe). Their peak luminosity spans a range of −15 < M_g < −22.5, with some events observed at redshifts greater than 1. Their evolution on fast time-scales has hindered high-quality follow-up observations, and thus their origin and explosion/emission mechanism remains unexplained. In this paper, we present the largest sample of RETs to date, comprising 106 objects discovered by the Dark Energy Survey, and perform the most comprehensive analysis of RET host galaxies. Using deep-stacked photometry and emission lines from OzDES spectroscopy, we derive stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) for 49 host galaxies, and metallicities ([O/H]) for 37. We find that RETs explode exclusively in star-forming galaxies and are thus likely associated with massive stars. Comparing RET hosts to samples of host galaxies of other explosive transients as well as field galaxies, we find that RETs prefer galaxies with high specific SFRs (〈log (sSFR)〉 ∼ −9.6), indicating a link to young stellar populations, similar to stripped-envelope SNe. RET hosts appear to show a lack of chemical enrichment, their metallicities akin to long-duration gamma-ray bursts and superluminous SN host galaxies (〈12 + log (O/H)〉 ∼ 9.4). There are no clear relationships between mass or SFR of the host galaxies and the peak magnitudes or decline rates of the transients themselves.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	2575-2593
Number of pages	19
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	498
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2474
State	Published - 2020

Keywords

Galaxies: abundances
Galaxies: photometry
Galaxies: star formation
Transients: supernovae

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.1093/mnras/staa2474

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Wiseman, P., Pursiainen, M., Childress, M., Swann, E., Smith, M., Galbany, L., Lidman, C., Davis, T. M., Gutiérrez, C. P., Möller, A., Thomas, B. P., Frohmaier, C., Foley, R. J., Hinton, S. R., Kelsey, L., Kessler, R., Lewis, G. F., Sako, M., Scolnic, D., ... Walker, A. R. (2020). The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 498(2), 2575-2593. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2474

Wiseman, P, Pursiainen, M, Childress, M, Swann, E, Smith, M, Galbany, L, Lidman, C, Davis, TM, Gutiérrez, CP, Möller, A, Thomas, BP, Frohmaier, C, Foley, RJ, Hinton, SR, Kelsey, L, Kessler, R, Lewis, GF, Sako, M, Scolnic, D, Sullivan, M, Vincenzi, M, Abbott, TMC, Aguena, M, Allam, S, Annis, J, Bertin, E, Bhargava, S, Brooks, D, Burke, DL, Carnero Rosell, A, Carollo, D, Carrasco Kind, M, Carretero, J, Costanzi, M, da Costa, LN, Diehl, HT, Doel, P, Everett, S, Fosalba, P, Frieman, J, García-Bellido, J, Gaztanaga, E, Glazebrook, K, Gruen, D, Gruendl, RA, Gschwend, J, Gutierrez, G, Hollowood, DL, Honscheid, K, James, DJ, Kuehn, K, Kuropatkin, N, Lima, M, Maia, MAG, Marshall, JL, Martini, P, Menanteau, F, Miquel, R, Palmese, A, Paz-Chinchón, F, Plazas, AA, Romer, AK, Sanchez, E, Scarpine, V, Schubnell, M, Serrano, S, Sevilla-Noarbe, I, Sommer, NE, Suchyta, E, Swanson, MEC, Tarle, G, Tucker, BE, Tucker, DL, Varga, TN & Walker, AR 2020, 'The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 498, no. 2, pp. 2575-2593. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2474

@article{9843c8b21c5c459283481c668a76a091,

title = "The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey",

abstract = "Rapidly evolving transients (RETs), also termed fast blue optical transients, are a recently discovered group of astrophysical events that display rapid luminosity evolution. RETs typically rise to peak in less than 10 d and fade within 30, a time-scale unlikely to be compatible with the decay of Nickel-56 that drives conventional supernovae (SNe). Their peak luminosity spans a range of −15 < Mg < −22.5, with some events observed at redshifts greater than 1. Their evolution on fast time-scales has hindered high-quality follow-up observations, and thus their origin and explosion/emission mechanism remains unexplained. In this paper, we present the largest sample of RETs to date, comprising 106 objects discovered by the Dark Energy Survey, and perform the most comprehensive analysis of RET host galaxies. Using deep-stacked photometry and emission lines from OzDES spectroscopy, we derive stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) for 49 host galaxies, and metallicities ([O/H]) for 37. We find that RETs explode exclusively in star-forming galaxies and are thus likely associated with massive stars. Comparing RET hosts to samples of host galaxies of other explosive transients as well as field galaxies, we find that RETs prefer galaxies with high specific SFRs (〈log (sSFR)〉 ∼ −9.6), indicating a link to young stellar populations, similar to stripped-envelope SNe. RET hosts appear to show a lack of chemical enrichment, their metallicities akin to long-duration gamma-ray bursts and superluminous SN host galaxies (〈12 + log (O/H)〉 ∼ 9.4). There are no clear relationships between mass or SFR of the host galaxies and the peak magnitudes or decline rates of the transients themselves.",

keywords = "Galaxies: abundances, Galaxies: photometry, Galaxies: star formation, Transients: supernovae",

author = "P. Wiseman and M. Pursiainen and M. Childress and E. Swann and M. Smith and L. Galbany and C. Lidman and Davis, {T. M.} and Guti{\'e}rrez, {C. P.} and A. M{\"o}ller and Thomas, {B. P.} and C. Frohmaier and Foley, {R. J.} and Hinton, {S. R.} and L. Kelsey and R. Kessler and Lewis, {G. F.} and M. Sako and D. Scolnic and M. Sullivan and M. Vincenzi and Abbott, {T. M.C.} and M. Aguena and S. Allam and J. Annis and E. Bertin and S. Bhargava and D. Brooks and Burke, {D. L.} and {Carnero Rosell}, A. and D. Carollo and {Carrasco Kind}, M. and J. Carretero and M. Costanzi and {da Costa}, {L. N.} and Diehl, {H. T.} and P. Doel and S. Everett and P. Fosalba and J. Frieman and J. Garc{\'i}a-Bellido and E. Gaztanaga and K. Glazebrook and D. Gruen and Gruendl, {R. A.} and J. Gschwend and G. Gutierrez and Hollowood, {D. L.} and K. Honscheid and James, {D. J.} and K. Kuehn and N. Kuropatkin and M. Lima and Maia, {M. A.G.} and Marshall, {J. L.} and P. Martini and F. Menanteau and R. Miquel and A. Palmese and F. Paz-Chinch{\'o}n and Plazas, {A. A.} and Romer, {A. K.} and E. Sanchez and V. Scarpine and M. Schubnell and S. Serrano and I. Sevilla-Noarbe and Sommer, {N. E.} and E. Suchyta and Swanson, {M. E.C.} and G. Tarle and Tucker, {B. E.} and Tucker, {D. L.} and Varga, {T. N.} and Walker, {A. R.}",

note = "Funding Information: This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. Funding Information: Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundac¸{\~a}o Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo {\`a} Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient{\'i}fico e Tecnol{\'o}gico and the Minist{\'e}rio da Ci{\^e}ncia, Tecnologia e Inovac¸{\~a}o, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. Funding Information: We acknowledge support from STFC grant ST/R000506/1. MSm, MSu, and CPG acknowledge support from from the European Union{\textquoteright}s 7th Framework Programme (EU/FP7) European Research Council (ERC) grant no. 615929. LG was funded by the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk{\l}odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). LK was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P006760/1) through the DISC-net Centre for Doctoral Training. Funding Information: The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ci{\^e}ncia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). Funding Information: Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Funding Information: We thank the anonymous referee, whose input has significantly enhanced the quality of this work, particularly for dedicating their time to review the work during unprecedented times of global crisis. We thank Maryam Modjaz and Dan Perley for providing the LVL compilation data. We acknowledge support from STFC grant ST/R000506/1. MSm, MSu, and CPG acknowledge support from from the European Union?s 7th Framework Programme (EU/FP7) European Research Council (ERC) grant no. 615929. LG was funded by the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). LK was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P006760/1) through the DISC-net Centre for Doctoral Training. This paper makes use of observations taken using the Anglo-Australian Telescope under programmes ATAC A/2013B/12 and NOAO 2013B-0317. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Funda??o Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo ? Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico and the Minist?rio da Ci?ncia, Tecnologia e Inova??o, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energ?ticas, Medioambientales y Tecnol?gicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgen?ssische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z?rich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ci?ncies de l?Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de F?sica d?Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit?t M?nchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union?s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ci?ncia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. This work makes extensive use of Astropy,3 a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), Pandas (Mckinney 2010), and matplotlib (Hunter 2007). Funding Information: This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1093/mnras/staa2474",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "498",

pages = "2575--2593",

journal = "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society",

issn = "0035-8711",

publisher = "Oxford University Press",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey

AU - Wiseman, P.

AU - Pursiainen, M.

AU - Childress, M.

AU - Swann, E.

AU - Smith, M.

AU - Galbany, L.

AU - Lidman, C.

AU - Davis, T. M.

AU - Gutiérrez, C. P.

AU - Möller, A.

AU - Thomas, B. P.

AU - Frohmaier, C.

AU - Foley, R. J.

AU - Hinton, S. R.

AU - Kelsey, L.

AU - Kessler, R.

AU - Lewis, G. F.

AU - Sako, M.

AU - Scolnic, D.

AU - Sullivan, M.

AU - Vincenzi, M.

AU - Abbott, T. M.C.

AU - Aguena, M.

AU - Allam, S.

AU - Annis, J.

AU - Bertin, E.

AU - Bhargava, S.

AU - Brooks, D.

AU - Burke, D. L.

AU - Carnero Rosell, A.

AU - Carollo, D.

AU - Carrasco Kind, M.

AU - Carretero, J.

AU - Costanzi, M.

AU - da Costa, L. N.

AU - Diehl, H. T.

AU - Doel, P.

AU - Everett, S.

AU - Fosalba, P.

AU - Frieman, J.

AU - García-Bellido, J.

AU - Gaztanaga, E.

AU - Glazebrook, K.

AU - Gruen, D.

AU - Gruendl, R. A.

AU - Gschwend, J.

AU - Gutierrez, G.

AU - Hollowood, D. L.

AU - Honscheid, K.

AU - James, D. J.

AU - Kuehn, K.

AU - Kuropatkin, N.

AU - Lima, M.

AU - Maia, M. A.G.

AU - Marshall, J. L.

AU - Martini, P.

AU - Menanteau, F.

AU - Miquel, R.

AU - Palmese, A.

AU - Paz-Chinchón, F.

AU - Plazas, A. A.

AU - Romer, A. K.

AU - Sanchez, E.

AU - Scarpine, V.

AU - Schubnell, M.

AU - Serrano, S.

AU - Sevilla-Noarbe, I.

AU - Sommer, N. E.

AU - Suchyta, E.

AU - Swanson, M. E.C.

AU - Tarle, G.

AU - Tucker, B. E.

AU - Tucker, D. L.

AU - Varga, T. N.

AU - Walker, A. R.

N1 - Funding Information: This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. Funding Information: Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundac¸ão Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovac¸ão, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. Funding Information: We acknowledge support from STFC grant ST/R000506/1. MSm, MSu, and CPG acknowledge support from from the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme (EU/FP7) European Research Council (ERC) grant no. 615929. LG was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). LK was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P006760/1) through the DISC-net Centre for Doctoral Training. Funding Information: The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). Funding Information: Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Funding Information: We thank the anonymous referee, whose input has significantly enhanced the quality of this work, particularly for dedicating their time to review the work during unprecedented times of global crisis. We thank Maryam Modjaz and Dan Perley for providing the LVL compilation data. We acknowledge support from STFC grant ST/R000506/1. MSm, MSu, and CPG acknowledge support from from the European Union?s 7th Framework Programme (EU/FP7) European Research Council (ERC) grant no. 615929. LG was funded by the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). LK was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P006760/1) through the DISC-net Centre for Doctoral Training. This paper makes use of observations taken using the Anglo-Australian Telescope under programmes ATAC A/2013B/12 and NOAO 2013B-0317. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Funda??o Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo ? Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico and the Minist?rio da Ci?ncia, Tecnologia e Inova??o, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energ?ticas, Medioambientales y Tecnol?gicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgen?ssische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z?rich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ci?ncies de l?Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de F?sica d?Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit?t M?nchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union?s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ci?ncia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. This work makes extensive use of Astropy,3 a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), Pandas (Mckinney 2010), and matplotlib (Hunter 2007). Funding Information: This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Rapidly evolving transients (RETs), also termed fast blue optical transients, are a recently discovered group of astrophysical events that display rapid luminosity evolution. RETs typically rise to peak in less than 10 d and fade within 30, a time-scale unlikely to be compatible with the decay of Nickel-56 that drives conventional supernovae (SNe). Their peak luminosity spans a range of −15 < Mg < −22.5, with some events observed at redshifts greater than 1. Their evolution on fast time-scales has hindered high-quality follow-up observations, and thus their origin and explosion/emission mechanism remains unexplained. In this paper, we present the largest sample of RETs to date, comprising 106 objects discovered by the Dark Energy Survey, and perform the most comprehensive analysis of RET host galaxies. Using deep-stacked photometry and emission lines from OzDES spectroscopy, we derive stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) for 49 host galaxies, and metallicities ([O/H]) for 37. We find that RETs explode exclusively in star-forming galaxies and are thus likely associated with massive stars. Comparing RET hosts to samples of host galaxies of other explosive transients as well as field galaxies, we find that RETs prefer galaxies with high specific SFRs (〈log (sSFR)〉 ∼ −9.6), indicating a link to young stellar populations, similar to stripped-envelope SNe. RET hosts appear to show a lack of chemical enrichment, their metallicities akin to long-duration gamma-ray bursts and superluminous SN host galaxies (〈12 + log (O/H)〉 ∼ 9.4). There are no clear relationships between mass or SFR of the host galaxies and the peak magnitudes or decline rates of the transients themselves.

AB - Rapidly evolving transients (RETs), also termed fast blue optical transients, are a recently discovered group of astrophysical events that display rapid luminosity evolution. RETs typically rise to peak in less than 10 d and fade within 30, a time-scale unlikely to be compatible with the decay of Nickel-56 that drives conventional supernovae (SNe). Their peak luminosity spans a range of −15 < Mg < −22.5, with some events observed at redshifts greater than 1. Their evolution on fast time-scales has hindered high-quality follow-up observations, and thus their origin and explosion/emission mechanism remains unexplained. In this paper, we present the largest sample of RETs to date, comprising 106 objects discovered by the Dark Energy Survey, and perform the most comprehensive analysis of RET host galaxies. Using deep-stacked photometry and emission lines from OzDES spectroscopy, we derive stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) for 49 host galaxies, and metallicities ([O/H]) for 37. We find that RETs explode exclusively in star-forming galaxies and are thus likely associated with massive stars. Comparing RET hosts to samples of host galaxies of other explosive transients as well as field galaxies, we find that RETs prefer galaxies with high specific SFRs (〈log (sSFR)〉 ∼ −9.6), indicating a link to young stellar populations, similar to stripped-envelope SNe. RET hosts appear to show a lack of chemical enrichment, their metallicities akin to long-duration gamma-ray bursts and superluminous SN host galaxies (〈12 + log (O/H)〉 ∼ 9.4). There are no clear relationships between mass or SFR of the host galaxies and the peak magnitudes or decline rates of the transients themselves.

KW - Galaxies: abundances

KW - Galaxies: photometry

KW - Galaxies: star formation

KW - Transients: supernovae

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094615894&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85094615894&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/mnras/staa2474

DO - 10.1093/mnras/staa2474

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85094615894

SN - 0035-8711

VL - 498

SP - 2575

EP - 2593

JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

IS - 2

ER -

The host galaxies of 106 rapidly evolving transients discovered by the Dark Energy Survey

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