Energy source and pre-explosion progenitor evolution of SuperLuminous Supernovae

With bolometric luminosities reaching Lvirgul10^45 erg/sec, the new class of SuperLuminous Supernovae (SLSNe) outshine ordinary SNe a factor 100 and represent thedeath of the most massive stars in our Universe. Their exceptional luminosityrequires exotic explosion mechanisms and/or sources of energy whose nature isunclear. Here we propose a continuation of our successful XMM program to maptheir Xray emission down to unprecedented limits as part of ourmultiwavelength effort through our programs on the VLA (radio), Swift (UV) andoptical/NIR facilities. The final aim is to: (i) Pin down the energy source ofSLSNe; (ii) Map the diversity of the preexplosion evolution of theirprogenitors. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]