Photometric Classification of 2315 Pan-STARRS1 Supernovae with Superphot

Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Frederick Dauphin, V. Ashley Villar, Edo Berger, David O. Jones, Peter Challis, Ryan Chornock, Maria R. Drout, Ryan J. Foley, Robert P. Kirshner, Ragnhild Lunnan, Raffaella Margutti, Dan Milisavljevic, Yen Chen Pan, Armin Rest, Daniel M. Scolnic, Eugene Magnier, Nigel Metcalfe, Richard Wainscoat, Christopher Waters

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

The classification of supernovae (SNe) and its impact on our understanding of explosion physics and progenitors have traditionally been based on the presence or absence of certain spectral features. However, current and upcoming wide-field time-domain surveys have increased the transient discovery rate far beyond our capacity to obtain even a single spectrum of each new event. We must therefore rely heavily on photometric classification-connecting SN light curves back to their spectroscopically defined classes. Here, we present Superphot, an open-source Python implementation of the machine-learning classification algorithm of Villar et al., and apply it to 2315 previously unclassified transients from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey for which we obtained spectroscopic host-galaxy redshifts. Our classifier achieves an overall accuracy of 82%, with completenesses and purities of >80% for the best classes (SNe Ia and superluminous SNe). For the worst performing SN class (SNe Ibc), the completeness and purity fall to 37% and 21%, respectively. Our classifier provides 1257 newly classified SNe Ia, 521 SNe II, 298 SNe Ibc, 181 SNe IIn, and 58 SLSNe. These are among the largest uniformly observed samples of SNe available in the literature and will enable a wide range of statistical studies of each class.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number93
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume905
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 20 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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