DLT40

Welcome to DLT40

Searching Supernova within 1 day of explosion

Last discovery

DLT21ae

DLT21ae is another interesting thermonuclear explosion that show a bump in the first few days after explosion. No current model can explain all of our observations.

DLT18q

DLT18u turned out to be a very interesting thermonuclear explosion with a rapid redward color evolution in the first 12.4 hours after explosion.

Read about it at this link: Nature Astronomy

DLT17ck

During the ongoing DLT40 search, we have discovered the optical conunterpart of a binary neutron star merging system. This marks the beginning of a new era of Multi-messenger Astronomy!
Read about it at this link: Press Release

Read about it at this link: Article

DLT17u

DLT17u turned out to be a very interesting thermonuclear explosion that show a blue bump in the first few days after explosion. Our best-fit model suggests the presence of a subgiant star 56 solar radii from the exploding white dwarf.

Read about it at this link: Press Release

Read about it at this link: Article


What are the progenitors of different kinds of supernovae? How do these stars explode? One of the best ways to gain insight into SN progenitors and their explosion physics is with early data in the hours to days after they explode. The early emission from SNe is generally dominated by the explosion itself rather than radioactive decay and can be used to measure the radius of the exploding star (Piro & Nakar 2013), a fundamental property of the explosion. The early light curve can also measure properties of a companion star (Kasen 2010), the presence of which is still an outstanding question for SNe Ia and thought to be critical for generating many stripped-envelope SNe. The rise of the early light curve can measure the outer 56Ni distribution (Piro 2012), an important constraint for explosion models. Furthermore, observations on these timescales can even help us study entirely new classes of transients, including the radioactively powered kilonovae that are expected from neutron star mergers (Metzger et al. 2010) and will be crucial for gravitational wave detections, and the shock breakout expected during black hole formation (Piro 2013), the birth of which have never been observed.

Motivated by the early-time science opportunities described above, we have begun a SN search in nearby galaxies with a rented PROMPT 0.4m telescope (located at CTIO, Chile). We have then extended our search using a second prompt telescope in Australia and, recently a third prompt telescope in Canada. Our search will uncover ~15 SNe per year within a day of explosion. Named the DLT40 survey, the general strategy is to observe galaxies within D < 40 Mpc every night down to a survey depth of ~19

Who we are ?

DLT40

Collaborators

  • David J. Sand (Principal Investigator) link
  • Stefano Valenti (Project Scientist) link
  • Yize Dong
  • Sam Wyatt
  • Azalee Bostroem
  • Griffin Hosseinzadeh
  • Jaboc Jencson
  • Jennifer Andrews
  • Michael Lundquist
  • Jeniveve Person
  • Daryl Jenzen
  • Nicolas Retamal
  • Las Cumbres Observatory
  • PESSTO

DLT40 Publications:

ADS NASA