| Pre-maximum spectroscopic diversity of superluminous supernovae |
| Réka Könyves-Tóth |
| Konkoly Observatory, CSFK, Hungary |
| Recently it was shown that the pre-maximum evolution of hydrogen-poor superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) is not uniform: they can be divided into two new empirical subclasses characterized by the presence/absence of a W-shaped absorption feature in their early phase spectra between 4000 and 5000 Å. These new subtypes are called Type W and Type 15bn groups. However, the physical reason behind the bimodality is still uncertain. In my presentation, I intend to talk about our quest in searching for physical differences between Type W and Type 15bn objects by modeling a series of pre-maximum spectra of 27 SLSNe-I. |