Search for γ-ray emission from superluminous supernovae with the Fermi-LAT

We present the first individual and stacking systematic search for γ-ray emission in the GeV band in the directions of 45 superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). No excess of γ-rays from the SLSN positions was found. We report γ-ray luminosity upper limits and discuss the implication of these results on the origin of SLSNe and, in particular, the scenario of central compact object-aided SNe. From the stacking search, we derived an upper limit at 95% confidence level to the γ-ray luminosity (above 600 MeV) L_γ < 9.1 × 10⁴¹ erg s⁻¹ for an assumed E⁻² photon spectrum for our full SLSN sample. We conclude that the rate of the neutron stars born with millisecond rotation periods P ≲ 2 ms and B ~ 10¹²⁻¹³ G must be lower than the rate of the observed SLSNe. The luminosity limits obtained on individual sources are also constraining: in particular, SN2013fc, CSS140222, SN2010kd, and PTF12dam can only be born with millisecond periods if B ≲ 10¹³ G.