The host galaxies of Type Ia supernovae discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory
Abstract
We present spectroscopic observations of the host galaxies of 82 low-redshift Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory. We determine star formation rates, gas-phase/stellar metallicities, and stellar masses and ages of these objects. As expected, strong correlations between the SN Ia light-curve width (stretch) and the host age/mass/metallicity are found: fainter, faster declining events tend to be hosted by older/massive/metal-rich galaxies. There is some evidence that redder SNe Ia explode in higher metallicity galaxies, but we found no relation between the SN colour and host galaxy extinction based on the Balmer decrement, suggesting that the colour variation of these SNe does not primarily arise from this source. SNe Ia in higher mass/metallicity galaxies also appear brighter after stretch/colour corrections than their counterparts in lower mass hosts, and the stronger correlation is with gas-phase metallicity suggesting this may be the more important variable. We also compared the host stellar mass distribution to that in galaxy-targeted SN surveys and the high-redshift untargeted Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). SNLS has many more low-mass galaxies, while the targeted searches have fewer. This can be explained by an evolution in the galaxy stellar mass function, coupled with an SN delay-time distribution proportional to t^−1. Finally, we found no significant difference in the mass–metallicity relation of our SN Ia hosts compared to field galaxies, suggesting any metallicity effect on the SN Ia rate is small.
Additional Information
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2013 November 22; Received 2013 November 11; in original form 2013 September 23. First published online: December 20, 2013. MS acknowledges support from the Royal Society. AG acknowledges support from the EU/FP7 via and ERC grant, funding from the ISF and BSF, and the Minerva ARCHES and Kimmel awards. Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brazil) and Ministerio de Ciencia, TecnologÃa e Innovación Productiva (Argentina). Based on Gemini progammes GN-2010B-Q-111, GS-2010B-Q-82, GN-2011A-Q-82, GN-2011B-Q-108, GN-2012A-Q-91, GS-2012A-Q-3, GN-2012B-Q-122 and GS-2012B-Q-83 for the host galaxy observations, and GN-2010A-Q-20, GN-2010B-Q-13, GN-2011AQ-16 and GS-2009B-Q-11 for the SN observations. The William Herschel Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de AstrofÃsica de Canarias. Observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the PTF project, a scientific collaboration between the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Las Cumbres Observatory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the University of Oxford and the Weizmann Institute of Science. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. Based on observations collected at the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern hemisphere, Chile, under programme IDs 084.A-0149 and 085.A-0777. Observations obtained with the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph on the University of Hawaii 2.2m telescope as part of the Nearby Supernova Factory II project, a scientific collaboration between the Centre de Recherche Astronomique de Lyon, Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon, Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et des Hautes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Yale University, University of Bonn, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics and Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille. This research hasmade use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication has been made possible by the participation of more than 10 000 volunteers in the Galaxy Zoo: Supernovae project (http://supernova.galaxyzoo.org/authors).Attached Files
Published - MNRAS-2014-Pan-1391-416.pdf
Submitted - 1311.6344v1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 44217
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140310-100817835
- Royal Society
- European Research Council (ERC)
- Israel Science Foundation
- Binational Science Foundation (USA-Israel)
- Minerva ARCHES Award
- Kimmel Award
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Created
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2014-03-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Palomar Transient Factory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)