"Hunting for Hidden Supernovae with SPIRITS"
Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are important probes of star formation, stellar evolution and mass loss, and the circum- and interstellar environments of massive stars in galaxies. Despite the enormous progress enabled by wide-field transient surveys in recent years, the census of CCSNe, even in the local 20 Mpc volume, is incomplete. Infrared (IR) searches, now systematically exploring the dynamic IR sky, offer an ideal platform to discover these missing stellar explosions. I will present recent results from the SPitzer InfraRed Intensive Transients Survey (SPIRITS), an ongoing search of nearby galaxies for transients in the Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 μm ([3.6] and [4.5]) imaging bands. Thus far, we have discovered a sample of 12 luminous IR transients that likely represent a population of nearby SNe completely missed by optical searches. Follow-up observations at optical, near-IR, and radio wavelengths to confirm and characterize these sources are underway. I will highlight some of our most well characterized events, including SPIRITS16tn, a likely sub-luminous type II SN at only 8.8 Mpc, and heavily obscured by 7-9 magnitudes of visible extinction. I will also discuss some of our most recently discovered events showing evidence for mid-IR, pre-SN outbursts. Finally, I will discuss prospects for upcoming surveys in the optical with ZTF and near-IR with Palomar Gattini-IR that will be sensitive to larger samples of obscured SNe at a range of extinctions and distances.