Recent Science Results

Alexei Kniazev et al. (RSA) reported SALT observations of the third closest
star to the Solar System: the brown dwarf pair known as WISE
J104915.57-531906.1.  These observations spectroscopically confirm the
binary nature of the system through measurements of the radial
velocity of both components, which indicate that they are a
gravitationally bound system.  For more details, please see:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.7171

Brent Miszalski (RSA), Joanna Mikolajewska (Pol), and Andrzej Udalski
(Pol) use SALT spectra of a high density (symbiotic-like) nucleus of
the planetary nebula K2-17 to indicate that a binary system might be
present. This discovery adds to a handful of other similar systems
presented in this paper and elsewhere whose nature is poorly
understood at present.  For more details, please see:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.4863v1.pdf

Childress et al. include a SALT spectrum in their 65 spectroscopic
observations of a luminous Type Ia supernova.  In this work, done in
collaboration with Saurabh Jha (RU) and Curtis McCully (RU), the
spectra show clear evidence for high velocity features at early
times. The SALT spectrum was obtained 14 days before maximum and is
the second earliest spectra by only a few hours.  The observations
were obtained only 5 hours after the target was submitted to the
queue.  For more details, please see: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2926

Identifying Supernovae with SALT

One advantage of SALT's queue-based scheduling is its flexibility in allowing Time-of-Opportunity (ToO) observations. Our ability to quickly follow up on and then monitor T Pyx has been a great example of this. This was a rather special case, however, because it was a very special event that occurred at the very beginning of our re-commissioning period. We would like to make handling ToO observations as routine and responsive as possible. Toward that end we have a couple of commissioning proposals from within the SALT partnership to do rapid spectroscopic follow-up of supernovae. The first fruits of these has come in the form of a successful ID of the supernova PSN J18435900-6159460 by D. Milisavljevic and R. Fesen (Dartmouth) which has been announced at http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=3404. Here is a plot of the SALT spectrum with an overlay of the model used to make the identification as a Type Ia.