UVOT photometry of Super-Chandrasekhar mass SNe Ia

We present and discuss the UV/optical photometric light curves, colors, absolute magnitudes, and spectra of three candidate Super-Chandrasekhar mass SNe - 2009dc, 2011aa, and 2012dn - observed with the Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. The light curves are at the broad end for SNe Ia, with the light curves of SN 2011aa being among the broadest ever observed.

We find all three to have very blue colors which may provide a means of excluding these overluminous SNe from cosmological analysis, though there is some overlap with the bluest of "normal" SNe Ia. All three are overluminous in their UV absolute magnitudes compared to normal and broad SNe Ia, but SNe 2011aa and 2012dn are not optically overluminous compared to normal SNe Ia. The integrated luminosity curves of SNe 2011aa and 2012dn in the UVOT range (1600-6000 {AA}) are only half as bright as SN 2009dc, implying a smaller ^56^Ni yield.