Extraordinary Magnification of the Ordinary Type Ia Supernova PS1-10afx
  Recently, Chornock and co-workers announced the Pan-STARRS discovery of a
transient source reaching an apparent peak luminosity of ~4x10^44 erg s^-1. We
show that the spectra of this transient source are well fit by normal Type Ia
supernova (SNIa) templates. The multi-band colors and light-curve shapes are
also consistent with normal SNeIa at the spectroscopically determined redshift
of z=1.3883; however, the observed flux is a constant factor of ~30 times too
bright in each band over time as compared to the templates. At minimum, this
shows that the peak luminosities inferred from the light-curve widths of some
SNeIa will deviate significantly from the established, empirical relation used
by cosmologists. We argue on physical grounds that the observed fluxes do not
reflect an intrinsically luminous SNIa, but rather PS1-10afx is a normal SNIa
whose flux has been magnified by an external source. The only known
astrophysical source capable of such magnification is a gravitational lens.
Given the lack of obvious lens candidates, such as galaxy clusters, in the
vicinity, we further argue that the lens is a supermassive black hole or a
comparatively low-mass dark matter halo. In this case, the lens continues to
magnify the underlying host galaxy light. If confirmed, this discovery could
impact a broad range of topics including cosmology, gamma-ray bursts, and dark
matter halos.
