Discovery of a Likely Type II Supernova at <i>z</i> = 3.6 with JWST
Abstract Transient astronomy of the early, high-redshift ( z > 3) Universe is an unexplored regime that offers the possibility of probing the first stars and the epoch of reionization. During Cycles 1 and 2 of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey program enabled one of the first searches for transients in deep images (∼30 AB mag) over a relatively wide area (25 arcmin 2 ). One transient, AT 2023adsv, was discovered with an F200W magnitude of 28.04 AB mag, and subsequent JWST observations revealed that the transient is a likely supernova (SN) in a host with z spec = 3.613 ± 0.001 and an inferred metallicity at the position of the SN of Z * = 0.3 ± 0.1 Z ⊙ . At this redshift, the first detections in F115W and F150W show that AT 2023adsv had bright rest-frame UV flux at the time of discovery. The multiband light curve of AT 2023adsv is best matched by a template of a Type IIP SN (SN IIP) with a peak absolute magnitude of M B ≈ −18.3 AB mag. We find a good match to a 20 M ⊙ red supergiant progenitor star with an explosion energy of 2 × 10 51 erg, likely higher than normally observed in the local Universe, but consistent with SNe IIP drawn from local, lower-metallicity environments. AT 2023adsv is the most distant photometrically classified SN IIP yet discovered with a spectroscopic redshift measurement, and may represent a global shift in SN IIP properties as a function of redshift.
Authors
- S. Gomez
- Q. Wang
- R. Maiolino
- B. A. Joshi
- M. R. Siebert
- M. Karmen
- M. Engesser
- W. Chen
- T. Wevers
- M. Shahbandeh
- J D R Pierel
- T J Moriya
- O. D. Fox
- L. G. Strolger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7756-4440)
- R. M. Quimby (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9171-5236)
- C. DeCoursey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4781-9078)
- D. A. Coulter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4263-2228)
- D. J. Eisenstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2929-3121)
- A. J. Bunker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8651-9879)
- S. Gezari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3703-5154)
- B. D. Johnson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9280-7594)
- J. Jencson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5754-4007)
- A. Rest (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4410-5387)
- M. Curti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2678-2560)
- S. Tacchella (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8224-4505)
- K. Hainline (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4565-8239)
- Y. Zenati (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0632-8897)
- B. Robertson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4271-0364)
- M. Guolo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5063-0751)
- E. Egami (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1344-9475)
- P. A. Cargile (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1617-8917)
- F. Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4622-6617)
- P. Rinaldi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5104-8245)
Institutions
- Oklahoma State University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Space Telescope Science Institute (US)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (JP)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
- National Institutes of Natural Sciences (JP)
- The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI (JP)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- San Diego State University (US)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (US)
- University College London (GB)
- Monash University (AU)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Published
- 2026-04-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae595d
- Primary Topic
- Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Simons Foundation
- Royal Society