1100 days in the life of the supernova 2018ibb -- The best pair-instability supernova candidate, to date

Understand

Abridged - Stars with ZAMS masses between 140 and $260 M_\odot$ 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.