Detectability of High-Redshift Superluminous Supernovae with Upcoming
  Optical and Near-Infrared Surveys
  Observations of high-redshift supernovae (SNe) open a novel opportunity to
study the massive star population in the early Universe. We study the
detectability of superluminous SNe with upcoming optical and near-infrared
(NIR) surveys. Our calculations are based on the cosmic star formation history,
the SN occurence rate, the characteristic colour and the light curve of the SNe
that are all calibrated by available observations. We show that 15-150 SNe up
to z ~ 4 will be discovered by the proposed Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam deep
survey: 30 deg^2 survey with 24.5 AB mag depth in z-band for 3 months. With its
ultra-deep layer (3.5 deg^2 with 25.6 AB mag depth in z-band for 4 months), the
highest redshift can be extended to z ~ 5. We further explore the detectability
by upcoming NIR survey utilizing future satellites such as Euclid, WFIRST, and
WISH. The wide-field NIR surveys are very efficient to detect high-redshift
SNe. With a hypothetical deep NIR survey for 100 deg^2 with 26 AB mag depth at
1-4 um, at least ~ 50 SNe will be discovered at z>3 in half a year. The number
of the detected SNe can place a strong constraint on the stellar initial mass
function or its slope especially at the high-mass end. Superluminous SNe at
high redshifts can be distinguished from other types of SNe by the long
time-scale of their light curves in the observer's frame, the optical colours
redder than other core-collapse SNe and the NIR colours redder than any other
types of SNe.
