First results from GeMS/GSAOI for project SUNBIRD: Supernovae UNmasked
  By Infra-Red Detection
  Core collapse supernova (CCSN) rates suffer from large uncertainties as many
CCSNe exploding in regions of bright background emission and significant dust
extinction remain unobserved. Such a shortfall is particularly prominent in
luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), which have high star formation (and thus
CCSN) rates and host bright and crowded nuclear regions, where large
extinctions and reduced search detection efficiency likely lead to a
significant fraction of CCSNe remaining undiscovered. We present the first
results of project SUNBIRD (Supernovae UNmasked By Infra-Red Detection), where
we aim to uncover CCSNe that otherwise would remain hidden in the complex
nuclear regions of LIRGs, and in this way improve the constraints on the
fraction that is missed by optical seeing-limited surveys. We observe in the
near-infrared 2.15 {\mu}m $K_s$-band, which is less affected by dust extinction
compared to the optical, using the multi-conjugate adaptive optics imager
GeMS/GSAOI on Gemini South, allowing us to achieve a spatial resolution that
lets us probe close in to the nuclear regions. During our pilot program and
subsequent first full year we have discovered three CCSNe and one candidate
with projected nuclear offsets as small as 200 pc. When compared to the total
sample of LIRG CCSNe discovered in the near-IR and optical, we show that our
method is singularly effective in uncovering CCSNe in nuclear regions and we
conclude that the majority of CCSNe exploding in LIRGs are not detected as a
result of dust obscuration and poor spatial resolution.
