Long-Duration Superluminous Supernovae at Late Times

ABSTRACT Nebular-phase observations and spectral models of Type Ic superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) are presented. LSQ14an and SN 2015bn both display late-time spectra similar to galaxy-subtracted spectra of SN 2007bi, and the class shows strong similarity with broad-lined SNe Ic such as SN 1998bw. Near-infrared observations of SN 2015bn show a strong Ca ii triplet, O i 9263, O i 1.13 μ m, and Mg i 1.50 μ m, but no distinct He, Si, or S emission. The high Ca ii NIR/Ca ii 7291, 7323 ratio of ∼2 indicates a high electron density of cm −3 . Spectral models of oxygen-zone emission are investigated to put constraints on the emitting region. Models require M ⊙ to produce enough O i 6300, 6364 luminosity, irrespective of the powering situation and the density. The high oxygen-zone mass, supported by high estimated magnesium masses, points to explosions of massive CO cores, requiring . Collisions of pair-instability pulsations do not provide enough mass to account for the emission. O ii and O iii lines emerge naturally in many models, which strengthens the identification of broad O ii 7320, 7330, O iii 4363, and O iii 4959, 5007 in some spectra. A small filling factor for the O/Mg zone is needed to produce enough luminosity in Mg i ] 4571, Mg i 1.504 μ m, and O i recombination lines, which shows that the ejecta is clumped. We review the constraints from the nebular spectral modeling in the context of the various scenarios proposed for SLSNe.