Optical Observations of the Young Type Ic Supernova SN 2014L in M99

We present optical spectroscopic and photometric observations of the nearby type Ic supernova (SN Ic) SN 2014L. This SN was discovered by the Tsinghua-NAOC Transient Survey (TNTS) in the nearby type-Sc spiral galaxy M99 (NGC 4254). Fitting to the early-time light curve indicates that SN 2014L was detected at only a few hours after the shock breakout, and it reached a peak brightness of $M_{\rm V} = -17.73 \pm 0.28$ mag ($L= [2.06\pm 0.50] \times 10^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$) approximately 13 days later. SN 2014L shows a close resemblance to SN 2007gr in the photometric evolution, while it shows stronger absorption features of intermediate-mass elements (especially \CaII) in the early-time spectra. Based on simple modeling of the observed light curves, we derived the mass of synthesized $^{56}$Ni as $M_{\rm Ni} = 0.075 \pm 0.025 M_{\odot}$, and the mass and total energy of the ejecta as $M_{\rm ej} = 1.00 \pm 0.20 M_\odot$ and $E_{\rm ej}=1.45\pm0.25$ foe, respectively. Given these typical explosion parameters, the early detection, and the extensive observations, we suggest that SN 2014L could be a template sample for the investigation of SNe Ic.