Electromagnetic Follow-up of the Sub-Solar Mass Gravitational Wave Candidate S251112cm: Kilonova Constraints and a Coincident IIb Supernova
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2026
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| author | Hall, Xander J. Ahumada, Tomas Gassert, Julius Palmese, Antonella Metzger, Brian D. Kasliwal, Mansi M. Bulla, Mattia Gruen, Daniel Stein, Robert Fremling, Christoffer Anand, Shreya Andreoni, Igor Busmann, Malte Cabrera, Tomás Christinzio, Ryan Freeburn, James Hernandez, Ignacio Magaña Hu, Lei O'Connor, Brendan Jiang, Ji-an Liu, Zhengyan Zhao, Wen Bellm, Eric C. Cook, David Coughlin, Michael W. Dekany, Richard Graham, Matthew Laher, Russ R. |
| author_facet | Hall, Xander J. Ahumada, Tomas Gassert, Julius Palmese, Antonella Metzger, Brian D. Kasliwal, Mansi M. Bulla, Mattia Gruen, Daniel Stein, Robert Fremling, Christoffer Anand, Shreya Andreoni, Igor Busmann, Malte Cabrera, Tomás Christinzio, Ryan Freeburn, James Hernandez, Ignacio Magaña Hu, Lei O'Connor, Brendan Jiang, Ji-an Liu, Zhengyan Zhao, Wen Bellm, Eric C. Cook, David Coughlin, Michael W. Dekany, Richard Graham, Matthew Laher, Russ R. |
| contents | On November 12th, 2025 the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA (LVK) collaboration reported gravitational waves (GWs) from a compact object merger candidate (S251112cm) with at least one sub-solar mass component. Using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), the Fraunhofer Telescope at Wendelstein Observatory (FTW), and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), we surveyed $56\%$ of the GW localization region beginning $2.4$~hours after the GW alert. We find no kilonova (KN) counterpart, and use radiative-transfer models to rule out $42\%$ (ZTF), $68\%$ (DECam), and $92\%$ (FTW) of the KN models as possible emission from this GW candidate. Within the recently proposed disk-fragmentation (``superkilonova'') model for generating sub-solar mass neutron star mergers from stellar core-collapse, the delay between the supernova explosion time and the GW merger time is estimated to be less than a few days. Searching this time window prior to the GW event, we identify and spectroscopically classify a IIb supernova (SN~2025adtq), with a spatial association odds ratio of $\log_{10}\mathcal{I} \approx 4.8$, a chance coincidence probability of ${\sim}2$--$9\%$, and an estimated explosion time ${\sim}2$ days prior to S251112cm. SN~2025adtq is the second Type~IIb supernova found in spatial and temporal coincidence with a sub-solar mass GW candidate, following the previously reported S250818k/SN~2025ulz association; jointly, we measure an odds ratio that favors the association hypothesis over the null, however, when conditioned on finding a coincident supernova by chance, the odds ratio disfavors association. Together, these results provide suggestive but inconclusive evidence for the superkilonova formation channel. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_10940 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Electromagnetic Follow-up of the Sub-Solar Mass Gravitational Wave Candidate S251112cm: Kilonova Constraints and a Coincident IIb Supernova Hall, Xander J. Ahumada, Tomas Gassert, Julius Palmese, Antonella Metzger, Brian D. Kasliwal, Mansi M. Bulla, Mattia Gruen, Daniel Stein, Robert Fremling, Christoffer Anand, Shreya Andreoni, Igor Busmann, Malte Cabrera, Tomás Christinzio, Ryan Freeburn, James Hernandez, Ignacio Magaña Hu, Lei O'Connor, Brendan Jiang, Ji-an Liu, Zhengyan Zhao, Wen Bellm, Eric C. Cook, David Coughlin, Michael W. Dekany, Richard Graham, Matthew Laher, Russ R. High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena On November 12th, 2025 the LIGO--Virgo--KAGRA (LVK) collaboration reported gravitational waves (GWs) from a compact object merger candidate (S251112cm) with at least one sub-solar mass component. Using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), the Fraunhofer Telescope at Wendelstein Observatory (FTW), and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), we surveyed $56\%$ of the GW localization region beginning $2.4$~hours after the GW alert. We find no kilonova (KN) counterpart, and use radiative-transfer models to rule out $42\%$ (ZTF), $68\%$ (DECam), and $92\%$ (FTW) of the KN models as possible emission from this GW candidate. Within the recently proposed disk-fragmentation (``superkilonova'') model for generating sub-solar mass neutron star mergers from stellar core-collapse, the delay between the supernova explosion time and the GW merger time is estimated to be less than a few days. Searching this time window prior to the GW event, we identify and spectroscopically classify a IIb supernova (SN~2025adtq), with a spatial association odds ratio of $\log_{10}\mathcal{I} \approx 4.8$, a chance coincidence probability of ${\sim}2$--$9\%$, and an estimated explosion time ${\sim}2$ days prior to S251112cm. SN~2025adtq is the second Type~IIb supernova found in spatial and temporal coincidence with a sub-solar mass GW candidate, following the previously reported S250818k/SN~2025ulz association; jointly, we measure an odds ratio that favors the association hypothesis over the null, however, when conditioned on finding a coincident supernova by chance, the odds ratio disfavors association. Together, these results provide suggestive but inconclusive evidence for the superkilonova formation channel. |
| title | Electromagnetic Follow-up of the Sub-Solar Mass Gravitational Wave Candidate S251112cm: Kilonova Constraints and a Coincident IIb Supernova |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.10940 |