Program: GS-2011B-Q-44

PAN-STARRS1 (PS1) and other recent optical transient surveys have uncovered a population of ultraluminous supernovae ($-24<$ M $<-21$ mag) in distant galaxies (to z $>1$) that have no counterparts in supernova searches of massive galaxies in the local universe. Crucial insight into the progenitor population of these unusual explosions can be gained from studies of their host galaxy properties. Here we propose GMOS and NIRI observations of ultraluminous SNe from PS1 (which exceed the luminosity and redshift of any events found by other surveys) to measure stellar masses and star formation rates of their hosts. This will also allow us to compare these galaxies to the host galaxies of normal core-collapse supernovae and gamma-ray bursts and therefore to test the hypothesis that these events are biased towards low-mass hosts, and hence low-metallicity progenitors.