A Late-time Radio Search for Highly Off-axis Jets from PTF Broad-lined Ic Supernovae in GRB-like Host Galaxy Environments

Hydrogen/Helium-poor stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae with broad lines (SNe Ic-bl) almost always accompany the nearby ($z < 0.3$) jetted relativistic explosions known as long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, the majority of SNe Ic-bl have no detected GRB counterpart. At least some of these SNe should harbor off-axis jets, whose afterglow may become detectable at late times, particularly at radio wavelengths. Here, we present Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio observations (rest frame times of ~ 3-4×10³ days post SN discovery) of a sample of 14 SNe Ic-bl discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) that have been demonstrated to originate from the same host environments as the SNe Ic-bl associated with nearby GRBs. Of the 14 SNe, we identify three that are radio detected, one of which (PTF10tqv, $z = 0.0795$) is consistent with an off-axis jet with energy similar to classical GRBs (1050.5~erg). Using recently developed synchrotron radiation code, we find that for our 11 non-detections, which are among the deepest limits obtained for Ic-bl, we rule out an off-axis jet with an energy of 10⁵¹~ erg in circumburst densities of 10⁻¹~ cm⁻³. We predict that well-spaced monitoring of newly discovered SNe Ic-bl from ~ 10~days to ~ 10~years (rest frame) to luminosities of ~ 10²⁷~ erg~s⁻¹~ Hz⁻¹ will constrain the existence of highly off-axis jets (60^∘) with classical GRB energies. The VLA Sky Survey will probe jets that are 60^∘ off-axis, whereas the Deep Synpotic Array 2000 will probe jets out to ~ 90^∘ off-axis, demonstrating the importance of utilizing radio surveys to supplement targeted observations.