Long γ-Ray Bursts and Type Ic Core-Collapse Supernovae Have Similar Locations in Hosts

By P. Kelly, R. Kirshner, M. Pahre. 2007

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When the afterglow fades at the site of a long-duration γ-ray burst (LGRB), Type Ic supernovae (SNe Ic) are the only type of core-collapse supernova observed. Recent work found that a sample of LGRB in high-redshift galaxies had different environments from a collection of core-collapse environments, which were identified from their colors and light curves. LGRBs were in the brightest regions of their hosts, but the core-collapse sample followed the overall distribution of the galaxy light. Here we examine 504 supernovae with types assigned based on their spectra that are located in nearby (z < 0.06) galaxies for which we have constructed surface photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The distributions of the thermonuclear supernovae (SNe Ia) and some varieties of core-collapse supernovae (SNe II and SNe Ib) follow the galaxy light, but the SNe Ic (like LGRBs) are much more likely to erupt in the brightest regions of their hosts. The high-redshift hosts of LGRB are overwhelmingly irregulars, without bulges, while many low-redshift SNe Ic hosts are spirals with small bulges. When we remove the bulge light from our low-redshift sample, the SN Ic and LGRB distributions agree extremely well. If both LGRBs and SNe Ic stem from very massive stars, then it seems plausible that the conditions necessary for forming SNe Ic are also required for LGRBs. Additional factors, including metallicity, may determine whether the stellar evolution of a massive star leads to a LGRB with an underlying broad-lined SN Ic, or simply a SN Ic without a γ-ray burst.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6ba76d02b659981800727b3f391e311bba7eb3bd

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Citations in the corpus

TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA RATE MEASUREMENTS TO REDSHIFT 2.5 FROM CANDELS: SEARCHING FOR PROMPT EXPLOSIONS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE (2014, background): “This ensures that the fake SN very roughly follow the distribution of host light (Kelly et al. 2008).”
Supernova remnants: the X-ray perspective (2011, background): “The fact that they are preferentially found in the most luminous regions of galaxies suggests that they are the explosions of the most massive stars (e.g. Kelly et al., 2008).”
Delay Time Distribution Measurement of Type Ia Supernovae by the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey and Implications for the Progenitor (2008, background): “If we are selecting SNe Ia physically associated with the galaxies, we would expect that the distribution of fl is roughly uniform between 0–1, since SNe Ia are expected to trace the host galactic light approximately (Kelly et al. 2007; Förster & Schawinski 2008).”
A NEW CLASS OF LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS AND A FIRST CENSUS OF THEIR MASSIVE STELLAR PROGENITORS (2008, background): “…complemented by statistical studies of supernova environments within their host galaxies, which provide indirect evidencfor associations between certain types of supernovae and broad classes of progenitors (e.g., James & Anderson 2006; Kelly et al. 2008; Prieto et al. 2008; Anderson & James 2008).”
Nearby supernova rates from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search – I. The methods and data base (2010, methodology): “Since the radial distance is only a rough estimate of the location of a SN in its host galaxy, more sophisticated methods are necessary to reveal additional differences in the distribution of the different type of SNe in their host galaxies (e.g., Fruchter et al. 2006; Kelly et al. 2008).”