  Superluminous supernova (SLSN) lightcurves exhibit a superior diversity
compared to their regular luminosity counterparts in terms of rise and decline
timescales, peak luminosities and overall shapes. It remains unclear whether
this striking variety arises due to a dominant power input mechanism involving
many underlying parameters, or due to contributions by different progenitor
channels. In this work, we propose that a systematic quantitative study of SLSN
lightcurve timescales and shape properties, such as symmetry around peak
luminosity, can be used to characterize these enthralling stellar explosions.
We find that applying clustering analysis on the properties of model SLSN
lightcurves, powered by either a magnetar spin-down or a supernova
ejecta-circumstellar interaction mechanism, can yield a distinction between the
two, especially in terms of lightcurve symmetry. We show that most events in
the observed SLSN sample with well-constrained lightcurves and early detections
strongly associate with clusters dominated by circumstellar interaction models.
Magnetar spin-down models also show association at a lower degree but have
difficulty in reproducing fast-evolving and fully symmetric lightcurves. We
believe this is due to the truncated nature of the circumstellar interaction
shock energy input as compared to decreasing but continuous power input sources
like magnetar spin-down and radioactive Ni-56 decay. Our study demonstrates the
importance of clustering analysis in characterizing SLSNe based on high-cadence
photometric observations that will be made available in the near future by
surveys like LSST, ZTF and Pan-STARRS.
