• DOI:10.1093/pasj/62.1.19
• Corpus ID: 119274162

Subaru FOCAS Spectroscopic Observations of High-Redshift Supernovae

@article{Morokuma2010SubaruFS,
  title={Subaru FOCAS Spectroscopic Observations of High-Redshift Supernovae},
  author={Tomoki Morokuma and Kouichi Tokita and Christopher E. Lidman and Mamoru Doi and Naoki Yasuda and Gregory S. Aldering and R. Amanullah and Kyle Barbary and Kyle S. Dawson and Vitaliy Fadeyev and H. K. Fakhouri and Gerson. Goldhaber and Ariel Goobar and Takashi Hattori and Junji Hayano and Isobel M. Hook and D. Andrew Howell and Hisanori Furusawa and Yutaka Ihara and Nobunari Kashikawa and R. Knop and Kohki Konishi and Joshua E. Meyers and Takeshi Oda and R. Pain and Saul Perlmutter and David Rubin and Anthony Louis Spadafora and Nao Suzuki and Naohiro Takanashi and Tomonori Totani and Hiroyuki Utsunomiya and Lifan Wang},
  journal={Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan},
  year={2010},
  volume={62},
  pages={19-37}
}

• T. Morokuma, K. Tokita, +30 authors Lifan Wang
• Published 6 November 2009
• Physics
• Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

We present spectra of high-redshift supernovae (SNe) that were taken with the Subaru low-resolution optical spectrograph, FOCAS. These SNe were found in SN surveys with Suprime-Cam on Subaru, the CFH12k camera on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, and the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. These SN surveys specifically targeted z > 1 Type la supernovae (SNe Ia). From the spectra of 39 candidates, we obtained redshifts for 32 candidates and spectroscopically identified 7 active candidates as probable SNe Ia, including one at z = 1.35, which is the most distant SN la to be spectroscopically confirmed with a ground-based telescope. An additional 4 candidates were identified as likely SNe la from the spectrophotometric properties of their host galaxies. Seven candidates are not SNe la, either being SNe of another type or active galactic nuclei. When SNe la were observed within one week of the maximum light, we found that we could spectroscopically identify most of them up to z = 1.1. Beyond this redshift, very few candidates were spectroscopically identified as SNe Ia. The current generation of super red-sensitive, fringe-free CCDs will push this redshift limit higher.