Research Groups

Stars with ZAMS masses between 140 and 260M⊙ are thought to explode as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). During their thermonuclear runaway, PISNe can produce up to several tens of solar masses of radioactive nickel, resulting in luminous transients similar to some superluminous supernovae (SLSNe). Yet, no unambiguous PISN has been discovered so far. SN2018ibb is a H-poor SLSN at z=0.166 that evolves extremely slowly compared to the hundreds of known SLSNe. Between mid 2018 and early 2022, we ...