Abstract:
The 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) will soon become operational at the
newly developed Devasthal observatory near Nainital (Uttarakhand, India). Coupled with a
4k × 4k pixels CCD detector and TDI optical corrector, it will reach approximately 22.8, 22.3,
and 21.4 mag in the g , r , and i spectral bands, respectively, in a single scan. The limiting
magnitudes can be further improved by co-adding the consecutive night images in particular
filters. The uniqueness to observe the same sky region by looking towards the zenith direction
every night makes the ILMT a unique instrument to detect new supernovae (SNe) by applying
the image subtraction technique. High cadence (∼24 h) observations will help to construct
dense sampling multi-band SNe light curves. We discuss the importance of the ILMT facility
in the context of SNe studies. Considering the various plausible cosmological parameters and
observational constraints, we perform detailed calculations of the expected SNe rate that can
be detected with the ILMT in different spectral bands.
