Characterizing Supernova Progenitors via the Metallicities of their Host Galaxies, from Poor Dwarfs to Rich Spirals
José L. Prieto, Krzysztof Z. Stanek, John F. Beacom (Ohio State)
We investigate how the different types of supernovae are relatively
affected by the metallicity of their host galaxy. We match the SAI
Supernova Catalog to the SDSS-DR4 catalog of star-forming galaxies with
measured metallicities. These supernova host galaxies span a range of
oxygen abundance from 12 + log(O/H) = 7.9 to 9.3 (~ 0.1 to 2.7 solar) and
a range in absolute magnitude from MB = -15.2 to -22.2. To reduce the
various observational biases, we select a subsample of
well-characterized supernovae in the redshift range from 0.01 to 0.04,
which leaves us with 58 SN II, 19 Ib/c, and 38 Ia. We find strong
evidence that SN Ib/c are occurring in higher-metallicity host galaxies
than SN II, while we see no effect for SN Ia relative to SN II. We note
some extreme and interesting supernova-host pairs, including the
metal-poor (~ 1/4 solar) host of the recent SN Ia 2007bk, where the
supernova was found well outside of this dwarf galaxy. To extend the
luminosity range of supernova hosts to even fainter galaxies, we also
match all the historical supernovae with z < 0.3 to the SDSS-DR6 sky
images, resulting in 1225 matches. This allows us to identify some even
more extreme cases, such as the recent SN Ic 2007bg, where the likely
host of this hypernova-like event has an absolute magnitude MB ~ -12,
making it one of the least-luminous supernova hosts ever observed. This
low-luminosity host is certain to be very metal poor (~ 1/20 solar), and
therefore this supernova is an excellent candidate for association with
an off-axis GRB. The two catalogs that we have constructed are
available online and will be updated regularly. Finally, we discuss
various implications of our findings for understanding supernova
progenitors and their host galaxies.
Links to the paper: ADS, astro-ph, pdf
Supernova Host Galaxy Metallicities: SAI ∩ SDSS-DR4 (Tremonti et al.)
Sorted by ...
Number of entries: 307
Updated: July 17, 2008
SDSS Images at the Supernova positions: SAI ∩ SDSS-DR6
Sorted by ...
Number of entries: 1583
Updated: July 17, 2008
Acknowledgments:
If you have comments and/or suggestions about the catalogs, please email me