2019ApJ...872..135K

We report the discovery of an SN 1988Z-like type IIn supernova KISS15s found in a low-mass star-forming galaxy at redshift z = 0.038 during the course of the Kiso Supernova Survey (KISS). KISS15s shows long-duration optical continuum and emission line light curves, indicating that KISS15s is powered by a continuous interaction between the expanding ejecta and dense circumstellar medium (CSM). The Hα emission line profile can be decomposed into four Gaussians of narrow, intermediate, blueshifted intermediate, and broad velocity width components, with a full width at half maximum of <=100, ∼2000, and ∼14,000 km s^–1 for the narrow, intermediate, and broad components, respectively. The presence of the blueshifted intermediate component, of which the line-of-sight velocity relative to the systemic velocity is about -5000 km s^–1, suggests that the ejecta-CSM interaction region has an inhomogeneous morphology and anisotropic expansion velocity. We found that KISS15s shows increasing infrared continuum emission, which can be interpreted as hot dust thermal emission of T ∼ 1200 K from newly formed dust in a cool, dense shell in the ejecta-CSM interaction region. The progenitor mass-loss rate, inferred from bolometric luminosity, is {dot}M∼0.4M_☉yr^–1(v_w/40kms^–1), where v_w is the progenitor's stellar wind velocity. This implies that the progenitor of KISS15s was a red supergiant star or a luminous blue variable that had experienced a large mass loss in the centuries before the explosion.