Swift Supernovae in the Future (2014-2018) Brainstorm List

Swift Supernovae in the Future (2014-2018) Brainstorm List

This post is intended as a brainstorming list to dump new ideas about what Swift should be doing in regards to supernovae over the next four years.  We don't need a list of all the wonderful science you could do, but how different target selection or observations can add to the science we are doing.  Adding something here doesn't necessarily mean you think we should do it, but that it could be done.  Adding something does not obligate you to do anything about it now, but we may ask for more details or ideas on implementation.  Suggestions do not need to be strongly justified on this page, but sometimes a brief clarification is useful.  Obviously we cannot do everything, but by airing these ideas we can probably find more synergistic observations which can benefit multiple projects.  Please add your ideas in the comments.

##############################

SNe in the Hubble Flow -- a large fraction of the Swift SNe are at very low redshifts (z<0.02) where the peculiar velocity contribution to the absolute magnitude error is greater than 0.1 mag (in the absence of other distance measurements).  More SNe Ia could be targeted in the range 0.02 < z < 0.03 or so, and UV bright SNe II even farther out.  [ Peter B]

Early grism observations -- the updated grism software includes calibration for positions across much of the field.  A slew in place, while desirable in the planned schedules, is no longer necessary, so grism observations can be uploaded to Swift as immediate targets for earlier spectra.  [Peter B]

[ April 22, 2014 Update -- I only listed a few ideas so that others could contribute without having most ideas already listed.  Since there hasn't been much response, I'll go ahead and list the other ideas I have. ]

V grism observations of SNe Ia -- We've focused mostly on the UV grism since the V grism only extends a little past what can be done from the ground (to about 2900 Angstroms).  But there are interesting features there that might explain the difference between NUV-red and NUV-blue SNe, and using the V grism would allow for SNe to be targeted at higher redshifts than the UV grism.

Reddened SNe -- Now that we've got a large sample of low reddened SNe to compare with we should also target mildly reddened SNe (E(B-V) <~ 0.5) to understand the wavelength dependence of the extinction law(s?) applicable to SNe

V grism observations of reddened SNe?  We can't get much mid-UV flux anyway, but V grism observations could probe the extinction law down to 2900 Angstroms

UV light curves of SNe Ib/c -- we still don't have many good light curves of SNe Ib/c, especially in the mid-UV (uvm2 band).   There aren't many close enough to detect in short observations (2 ks) but we could take longer exposures to get light curves of SNe Ib/c a little farther away.

Distance-limited sample of SNe IIP -- IIn

Target all SLSN candidates brighter than g/B/V ~ 20 -- some might not be UV bright but we could get a feel for what fraction are and what the brightness distribution is in the UV