CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE FROM THE PALOMAR TRANSIENT FACTORY: INDICATIONS FOR A DIFFERENT POPULATION IN DWARF GALAXIES

By I. Arcavi, A. Gal-yam, Mansi M. Kasliwal, R. Quimby, Eran Ofek, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni, P. Nugent, S. Cenko, Joshua S. Bloom, M. Sullivan and 19 more. 2010

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We use the first compilation of 72 core-collapse supernovae (SNe) from the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) to study their observed subtype distribution in dwarf galaxies compared to giant galaxies. Our sample is the largest single-survey, untargeted, spectroscopically classified, homogeneous collection of core-collapse events ever assembled, spanning a wide host-galaxy luminosity range (down to Mr ≈ −14 mag) and including a substantial fraction (>20%) of dwarf (Mr ⩾ −18 mag) hosts. We find more core-collapse SNe in dwarf galaxies than expected and several interesting trends emerge. We use detailed subclassifications of stripped-envelope core-collapse SNe and find that all Type I core-collapse events occurring in dwarf galaxies are either SNe Ib or broad-lined SNe Ic (SNe Ic-BL), while “normal” SNe Ic dominate in giant galaxies. We also see a significant excess of SNe IIb in dwarf hosts. We hypothesize that in lower metallicity hosts, metallicity-driven mass loss is reduced, allowing massive stars that would have appeared as “normal” SNe Ic in metal-rich galaxies to retain some He and H, exploding as Ib/IIb events. At the same time, another mechanism allows some stars to undergo extensive stripping and explode as SNe Ic-BL (and presumably also as long-duration gamma-ray bursts). Our results are still limited by small-number statistics, and our measurements of the observed N(Ib/c)/N(II) number ratio in dwarf and giant hosts (0.25+0.3−0.15 and 0.23+0.11−0.08, respectively; 1σ uncertainties) are consistent with previous studies and theoretical predictions. As additional PTF data accumulate, more robust statistical analyses will be possible, allowing the evolution of massive stars to be probed via the dwarf-galaxy SN population.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4084f381d33769dc10354e1120b7acb1f3b7254c

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Citations in the corpus

Nearby Supernova Rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search. II. The Observed Luminosity Functions and Fractions of Supernovae in a Complete Sample (2010, methodology): “Perhaps the discrepancy is related to the dissimilar analysis methods; we study the differences in the M(K) distributions of the SN host galaxies, while Arcavi et al. (2010) divided the galaxies into two categories (giant/dwarf) and analysed the fractions of the different SN subclasses.”
Progenitor mass constraints for core-collapse supernovae from correlations with host galaxy star formation⋆ (2012, background): “…have investigated how the relative SN rates change with e.g. luminosities of host galaxies (e.g. Prantzos & Boissier 2003; Boissier & Prantzos 2009; Arcavi et al. 2010), to infer metallicity trends, or have obtained ‘direct’ host galaxy metallicity measurements through spectroscopic observations…”
THE COSMIC CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA RATE DOES NOT MATCH THE MASSIVE-STAR FORMATION RATE (2011, background): “Also, the distributions of CC SNe types are different (Arcavi et al. 2010).”
Mass Loss: Its Effect on the Evolution and Fate of High-Mass Stars (2014, background): “8 The recent study by Arcavi et al. (2010) finds that compared to giant galaxies at high Z, there is a much larger fraction of SNe IIb and a lower fraction of normal SNe Ibc in lower-Z dwarf galaxies.”
SN 2011dh: DISCOVERY OF A TYPE IIb SUPERNOVA FROM A COMPACT PROGENITOR IN THE NEARBY GALAXY M51 (2011, background): “Numerous corecollapse SNe are discovered each year and statistical analyses of large samples are yielding interesting insights (e.g., Anderson & James 2009; Boissier & Prantzos 2009; Arcavi et al. 2010; Li et al. 2011; Smith et al. 2011b).”
Bolometric light curves and explosion parameters of 38 stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae (2014, background): “Analysis of the hosts of SNe (e.g. Prieto, Stanek & Beacom 2008; Arcavi et al. 2010; Svensson et al. 2010; Kelly et al. 2014), the environments and metallicities of SN locations within the hosts (e.g. Anderson & James 2008; Boissier & Prantzos 2009; Anderson et al. 2010; Leloudas et al. 2011;…”
CHARACTERIZING THE V-BAND LIGHT-CURVES OF HYDROGEN-RICH TYPE II SUPERNOVAE (2014, background): “It is interesting to compare this heterogeneous sample with that published by Arcavi et al. (2010) (CC SNe discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory: PTF).”
Light-curve modelling of superluminous supernova 2006gy: collision between supernova ejecta and a dense circumstellar medium (2012, background): “…progenitor mass is rather close to those of LBVs. Note, however, that the host galaxy of SN 2006gy is not metal-poor (e.g. Ofek et al. 2007), while broad-line Type Ic SNe appear more preferentially in lowmetallicity environments (e.g. Arcavi et al. 2010; Modjaz et al. 2011; Sanders et al. 2012).”
Supernovae from red supergiants with extensive mass loss (2010, methodology): “…CCSNe by directly getting images of the SN progenitors by looking into the archival images of the SN site (Smartt 2009, and the references therein) or statistically analysing the number of ⋆ takashi.moriya@ipmu.jp SNe appeared (e.g., Smith et al. 2010; Boissier & Prantzos 2009; Arcavi et al. 2010).”
THE FIRST SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF TYPE Ibc SUPERNOVA MULTI-BAND LIGHT CURVES (2010, background): “…galaxy studies suggest dissimilar progenitor channels for SNe Ib and Ic based on the properties (e.g., luminosity, chemistry, star-formation rate) of the explosion sites (Kelly, Kirshner & Pahre 2008; Prieto, Stanek & Beacom 2008; Arcavi et al. 2010; Modjazet al. 2010 but see Andersonet al. 2010).”
Observed Fractions of Core-Collapse Supernova Types and Initial Masses of their Single and Binary Progenitor Stars (2010, background): “Since our survey did not adequately sample dwarf galaxies, the study by Arcavi et al. (2010) is complementary to ours, although we find significantly different relative fractions of SN types in large galaxies.”
Spectroscopy of superluminous supernova host galaxies. A preference of hydrogen-poor events for extreme emission line galaxies (2014, background): “Many studies suggest that these explosions occur in different environments than normal SNe Ic (e.g. Arcavi et al. 2010; Modjaz et al. 2011; Kelly & Kirshner 2012; Sanders et al. 2012) and their locations on the BPT diagram might constitute another important difference.”
A POPULATION OF MASSIVE, LUMINOUS GALAXIES HOSTING HEAVILY DUST-OBSCURED GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE USE OF GRBs AS TRACERS OF COSMIC STAR FORMATION (2013, background): “Metallicity in particular is thought to play an important role in massive-star evolution: metals provide opacity to the stellar envelope, helping an evolved star to expel its diffuse hydrogen and helium layers, which must be removed by some means to enable the jet to escape the star and to be consis”
OPTICAL SPECTRA OF 73 STRIPPED-ENVELOPE CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE (2014, background): “Arcavi et al. (2010) find that the population of SNe harvested via the untargeted survey Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is different in low-luminosity versus high-luminosity galaxies such that only SNe IIb, Ib, and Ic-bl are hosted by lowluminosity galaxies, but no SNe Ic.”
Nearby supernova rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search – III. The rate–size relation, and the rates as a function of galaxy Hubble type and colour (2010, background): “Arcavi et al. (2010) re- ported that the SN Ibc fraction among the CC SNe does not change in dwarf galaxies, though with small-number statistics.”
CALCIUM-RICH GAP TRANSIENTS IN THE REMOTE OUTSKIRTS OF GALAXIES (2011, background): “Type Ic supernovae are not found in dwarfs (Arcavi et al. 2010) and SN Ibc are more centrally concentrated than SN II (Anderson & James 2009).”
Nearby supernova rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search – I. The methods and data base (2010, background): “Recently, Arcavi et al. (2010) reported a complementary study of a sample of 70 core-collapse SNe found by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), an untargeted survey that monitors many lowluminosity galaxies; see §5.4 of Paper II for more details.”