THE SUPERNOVA DELAY TIME DISTRIBUTION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TYPE-Ia PROGENITORS AND METAL ENRICHMENT

By D. Maoz, K. Sharon, A. Gal-yam. 2010

168 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Knowledge of the supernova (SN) delay time distribution (DTD)—the SN rate versus time that would follow a hypothetical brief burst of star formation—can shed light on SN progenitors and physics, as well as on the timescales of chemical enrichment in different environments. We compile recent measurements of the Type-Ia SN (SN Ia) rate in galaxy clusters at redshifts from z = 0 out to z = 1.45, just 2 Gyr after cluster star formation at z ≈ 3. We review the plausible range for the observed total iron-to-stellar mass ratio in clusters, based on the latest data and analyses, and use it to constrain the time-integrated number of SN Ia events in clusters. With these data, we recover the DTD of SNe Ia in cluster environments. The DTD is sharply peaked at the shortest time-delay interval we probe, 0Gyr < t < 2.2 Gyr, with a low tail out to delays of ∼10 Gyr, and is remarkably consistent with several recent DTD reconstructions based on different methods, applied to different environments. We test DTD models from the literature, requiring that they simultaneously reproduce the observed cluster SN rates and the observed iron-to-stellar mass ratios. A parameterized power-law DTD of the form t−1.2±0.3 from t = 400 Myr to a Hubble time can satisfy both constraints. Shallower power laws such as t−1/2 cannot, assuming a single DTD, and a single star formation burst (either brief or extended) at high z. This implies that 50%–85% of SNe Ia explode within 1 Gyr of star formation. DTDs from double-degenerate (DD) models, which generically have ∼t−1 shapes over a wide range of timescales, match the data, but only if their predictions are scaled up by factors of 5–10. Single-degenerate (SD) DTDs always give poor fits to the data, due to a lack of delayed SNe and overall low numbers of SNe. The observations can also be reproduced with a combination of two SN Ia populations—a prompt SD population of SNe Ia that explodes within a few Gyr of star formation, and produces about 60% of the iron mass in clusters, and a DD population that contributes the events seen at z < 1.5. An alternative scenario of a single, prompt, SN Ia population, but a composite star formation history in clusters, consisting of a burst at high z, followed by a constant star formation rate, can reproduce the SN rates, but is at odds with direct measurements of star formation in clusters at 0 < z < 1. Our results support the existence of a DD progenitor channel for SNe Ia, if the overall predicted numbers can be suitably increased.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1297eba536e7c32003b7a908cb5c3ba34cd6dd38

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. E. Quataert
3. E. Berger
4. L. Hernquist
5. C. Faucher-Giguére
6. D. Maoz
7. R. Dav'e
8. F. Mannucci

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. C. Faucher-Giguére
4. R. Dav'e
5. E. Quataert
6. D. Keres̆
7. R. Somerville
8. R. Bouwens

Citations in the corpus

• Delay-time distribution of core-collapse supernovae with late events resulting from binary interaction (2017, background): “…focus on the delay time of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), which are thought to arise from the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf (e.g., Totani et al. 2008; Maoz et al. 2010, 2011, 2012; Maoz & Badenes 2010; Graur & Maoz 2013; Graur et al. 2014); we refer to Maoz et al. (2014) for a review.”
• THE UNIVERSAL STELLAR MASS–STELLAR METALLICITY RELATION FOR DWARF GALAXIES (2013, methodology): “As an example, based on supernova yields (Iwamoto et al. 1999; Nomoto et al. 2006) and a Type Ia supernova delay time distribution (Maoz et al. 2010), the stellar population in NGC 6822 should have produced 3 × 105 M⊙ of iron.”
• EVLA OBSERVATIONS CONSTRAIN THE ENVIRONMENT AND PROGENITOR SYSTEM OF Type Ia SUPERNOVA 2011fe (2012, result): “Our study may be viewed as consistent with the growing body of evidence favoring DD progenitors, which includes measurements of the delay time distribution of SNe Ia (Maoz et al. 2010) and computational successes with theoretical DD explosions (Pakmor et al. 2010).”
• Supernova Type Ia progenitors from merging double white dwarfs - Using a new population synthesis model (2012, background): “Furthermore, SNIa that take place more than a few 109 years after the starburst (see e.g. Maoz et al. 2010) are hard to create in this channel (e.g. Yungelson & Livio 2000; Han & Podsiadlowski 2004).”
• The delay-time distribution of Type Ia supernovae from Sloan II (2012, methodology): “Furthermore, both the current and the M11 3 measurements are lower than the DTD values implied by a number of independent measurements of SN Ia rates in galaxy clusters, as compiled in Maoz et al. (2010), and also shown in Fig.”
• THE LONG-TERM EVOLUTION OF DOUBLE WHITE DWARF MERGERS (2011, result): “…and observations of progenitor systems (albeit with large error bars; Nelemans et al. 2005; Geier et al. 2010a,b; Tovmassian et al. 2010; Rodŕıguez-Gil et al. 2010) are promisingly consistent with the observed SN Ia rate and delay time distribution (Maoz et al. 2010, 2011; Graur et al. 2011).”
• DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE GALAXIES HOSTING SHORT-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2013, result): “We note that this result is similar to Type Ia supernovae which have n ≈ −1.1 (Maoz et al. 2010, 2012), and is in contrast to previous short GRB results which claimed substantially longer average delay times of∼ 4−8 Gyr for lognormal lifetime distributions based on smaller numbers of events (Nakar…”
• NORMAL TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE FROM VIOLENT MERGERS OF WHITE DWARF BINARIES (2012, background): “…findings including SN rates from population synthesis studies (Ruiter et al. 2009), studies of the delaytime distribution of observed SNe Ia (e.g. Maoz et al. 2010), the lack of radio emission of SNe Ia (e.g. Hancock et al. 2011), the lack of hydrogen emission in nebular spectra of SNe Ia…”
• The structure and dynamical evolution of the stellar disc of a simulated Milky Way-mass galaxy (2016, background): “Also, the total number of Type Ia SNe calculated from Mannucci et al. (2006) is lower than that derived from Maoz et al. (2010) by a factor of a few for a stellar population older than 1 Gyr; this may lead to predictions of lower Fe, but we cannot simply renormalize the Fe abundances in the…”
• THE CLUSTER LENSING AND SUPERNOVA SURVEY WITH HUBBLE: AN OVERVIEW (2011, background): “However, a number of more recent measurements and analyses point to a DTD that is a power law of index ≈ −1 (Totani et al. 2008; Maoz et al. 2010; Maoz & Badenes 2010; Brandt et al. 2010; Horiuchi & Beacom 2010; Maoz et al. 2011; Graur et al. 2011).”
• SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR WHITE DWARF MERGERS AS THE PROGENITORS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “The rate has been suggested to depend on both mass and star-formation rate (Mannucci et al. 2005), or to simply 2 be a roughly constant fraction, of∼1%, of the instantaneous WD formation rate (Pritchet et al. 2008; but see Maoz et al. 2010a, whose data suggest a break beyond∼ 2Gyr [their Fig.”
• ACCELERATING COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS IN TRIPLE SYSTEMS WITH THE KOZAI RESONANCE: A MECHANISM FOR “PROMPT” TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE, GAMMA-RAY BURSTS, AND OTHER EXOTICA (2010, background): “200 Myr (Aubourg et al. 2008; Brandt et al. 2010; Maoz & Badenes 2010; Maoz et al. 2010; Maoz et al. 2011).”
• The Carnegie Supernova Project. I. Third Photometry Data Release of Low-redshift Type Ia Supernovae and Other White Dwarf Explosions (2017, background): “…and DOI. dependence of the delay time between the birth of the progenitor system and the explosion as an SN Ia (the “delay-time distribution”; Maoz et al. 2010) and the unsuccessful search for evidence of the companions to normal TypeIa SNe (see, e.g., Li et al. 2011; Schaefer & Pagnotta…”
• Type-Ia Supernova Rates and the Progenitor Problem: A Review (2011, methodology): “Figure 1 shows the DTD derived by Maoz et al. (2010) based on most of these galaxy-cluster SN Ia rate measurements, together with the iron-based DTD integral constraint, which sets the level in the earliest DTD bin.”
• Theoretical uncertainties of the Type Ia supernova rate (2014, background): “More recent observations show that the DTD is best described by a continuous power-law function with an index of−1 (Totani et al. 2008; Maoz et al. 2010, 2011; Maoz & Mannucci 2012; Graur et al. 2011; Graur & Maoz 2013), more specifically (Maoz & Mannucci 2012) DTD(t) ≈ 0.4 (t/Gyr)−1 SNuM,…”