Palomar Transient Factory discovers a young, broad-line Type Ic supernova
E. O. Ofek, M. M. Kasliwal, A. Gal-Yam, J. S. Bloom, P. Nugent, A. Howell, M. Sullivan, R. Quimby, S. B. Cenko, D. Poznanski, and S. R. Kulkarni on  behalf of the PTF collaboration
The Palomar Transient Factory (ATEL#1964) observed a broad-line type-Ic SN, PTF 10bzf, on UTC 2010 Feb 23.504 at R=18.8. The SN was not seen in previous images of the same field taken on 2010 Feb 19.439 to a limiting magnitude R > 20.9. The SN coordinates are: 11:44:02.99 +55:41:27.6 (J2000), about 5.2" at position angle of 7 deg from the galaxy SDSS J114402.98+554122.5. We obtained a spectrum using Gemini-N GMOS on 2010 Mar 01. The spectrum resembles SN 1998bw at about -3 days prior to maximum light (Galama et al., Nature, 395, 670), and shows very broad lines. The supernova is at z=0.0498, based on the OII, H\alpha, H\beta and SII emission lines from the host galaxy. We thank the Gemini staff for queue-serviced observing. A multiwavelength follow-up campaign is ongoing.
optical,supernovae,transient