Program: GN-2011A-Q-48

Our just-completed Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics program to detect and study core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in the nuclear regions of a sample of northern Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) was extremely successful, discovering 3 CCSNe and confirming 2 more. Revealing this previously hidden population of highly-obscured CCSNe is crucial for revising the optically-derived SN rates (which we have now shown miss a significant fraction of all the SN events in the local and distant Universe), which in turn provide an independent measurement of the star formation history of the Universe. We request time to re-image the host galaxies of Supernovae 2010O, 2010P, and 2010cu in the J, H, and K bands now that the supernovae have had time to fade, enabling us to reliably extract the supernova fluxes at earlier epochs and from these derive the dust extinction suffered by each object. These extinction measurements form one of the most important outcomes from this innovative program.