iPTF 16asu Revisited: A Rapidly Evolving Superluminous Broad-lined Ic Supernova?

In this paper, we fit the spectral energy distributions of iPTF 16asu, which has so far been classified as a luminous rapidly evolving broad-lined Ic supernova (SN Ic-BL), and reconstruct its postpeak bolometric light curve. We find that the luminosity of the postpeak bolometric light curve of iPTF 16asu is about 3 times that of the pseudobolometric light curve derived in the literature, and the extrapolated peak luminosity exceeds similar to 10(44) erg s(-1), which is higher than the threshold of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe). We then use the Ni-56 model and the magnetar plus Ni-56 model to fit the multiband light curves of iPTF 16asu, and construct the theoretical bolometric light curve using the best-fitting theoretical multiband light curves. We find that the magnetar plus Ni-56 model can account for the photometry of iPTF 16asu, and the peak luminosity of its theoretical bolometric light curve is similar to 1.06 x 10(44) erg s(-1). We suggest that iPTF 16asu and similar SNe (e.g., SN 2018gep) constitute the class of rapidly evolving SLSNe Ic-BL.