Type II-P Supernovae from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey and the Standardized Candle Method

Creators: D'Andrea, Chris B.; Sako, Masao; Dilday, Benjamin; Frieman, Joshua A.; Holtzman, Jon; Kessler, Richard; Konishi, Kohki; Schneider, D. P.; Sollerman, Jesper; Wheeler, J. Craig; Yasuda, Naoki; Cinabro, David; Jha, Saurabh; Nichol, Robert C.; Lampeitl, Hubert; Smith, Mathew; Atlee, David W.; Bassett, Bruce; Castander, Francisco J.; Goobar, Ariel; Miquel, Ramon; Nordin, Jakob; Östman, Linda; Prieto, José L.; Quimby, Robert; Riess, Adam G.; Stritzinger, Maximilian

Abstract

We apply the Standardized Candle Method (SCM) for Type II Plateau supernovae (SNe II-P), which relates the velocity of the ejecta of a SN to its luminosity during the plateau, to 15 SNe II-P discovered over the three season run of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey. The redshifts of these SNe—0.027 < z < 0.144—cover a range hitherto sparsely sampled in the literature; in particular, our SNe II-P sample contains nearly as many SNe in the Hubble flow (z > 0.01) as all of the current literature on the SCM combined. We find that the SDSS SNe have a very small intrinsic I-band dispersion (0.22 mag), which can be attributed to selection effects. When the SCM is applied to the combined SDSS-plus-literature set of SNe II-P, the dispersion increases to 0.29 mag, larger than the scatter for either set of SNe separately. We show that the standardization cannot be further improved by eliminating SNe with positive plateau decline rates, as proposed in Poznanski et al. We thoroughly examine all potential systematic effects and conclude that for the SCM to be useful for cosmology, the methods currently used to determine the Fe II velocity at day 50 must be improved, and spectral templates able to encompass the intrinsic variations of Type II-P SNe will be needed.

Additional Information

© 2010 American Astronomical Society. Received 2009 October 2; accepted 2009 November 9; published 2009 December 15. C.D. thanks Dovi Poznanski and Peter Nugent for numerous helpful conversations. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web Site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. The Hobby–Eberly Telescope (HET) is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, the Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximillians- Universitat Munchen, and Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen. The HET is named in honor of its principal benefactors, William P. Hobby and Robert E. Eberly. The Marcario Low-resolution Spectrograph is named for Mike Marcario of High Lonesome Optics, who fabricated several optics for the instrument but died before its completion; it is a joint project of the Hobby– Eberly Telescope partnership and the Instituto de Astronomıa de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium. We thank the observatory director, Suzanne Hawley, and site manager, Bruce Gillespie, for their support of this project. The Subaru Telescope is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; we thank Takashi Hattori for his support during our observing run at Subaru. The William Herschel Telescope is operated by the Isaac Newton Group, the Nordic Optical Telescope is operated jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, and the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) is operated by the Fundacion Galileo Galilei of the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), all on the island of La Palma in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofısica de Canarias. Observations at the ESO New Technology Telescope at La Silla Observatory were made under programme IDs 77.A-0437, 78.A-0325, and 79.A-0715. Kitt Peak National Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. We thank R. Kirshner, P. Challis, and S. Blondin for assistance with the spectroscopic observations at Magellan. The Hiltner 2.4m telescope of the MDM Observatory is owned and operated by the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, the Ohio State University, Columbia University, and Ohio University.

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