LOSS Revisited. II. the Relative Rates of Different Types of Supernovae Vary between Low- and High-mass Galaxies

Or Graur, Federica B. Bianco, Maryam Modjaz, Isaac Shivvers, Alexei V. Filippenko, Weidong Li, Nathan Smith

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    In Paper I of this series, we showed that the ratio between stripped-envelope (SE) supernova (SN) and Type II SN rates reveals a significant SE SN deficiency in galaxies with stellar masses ≲1010 M⊙. Here, we test this result by splitting the volume-limited subsample of the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) SN sample into lowand high-mass galaxies and comparing the relative rates of various SN types found in them. The LOSS volumelimited sample contains 180 SNe and SN impostors and is complete for SNe Ia out to 80 Mpc and core-collapse SNe out to 60 Mpc. All of these transients were recently reclassified by us in Shivvers et al. We find that the relative rates of some types of SNe differ between low- and high-mass galaxies: SNe Ib and Ic are underrepresented by a factor of ∼3 in low-mass galaxies. These galaxies also contain the only examples of SN 1987A-like SNe in the sample and host about nine times as many SN impostors. Normal SNe Ia seem to be ∼30% more common in low-mass galaxies, making these galaxies better sources for homogeneous SN Ia cosmology samples. The relative rates of SNe IIb are consistent in both low- and high-mass galaxies. The same is true for broad-line SNe Ic, although our sample includes only two such objects. The results presented here are in tension with a similar analysis from the Palomar Transient Factory, especially as regards SNe IIb.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number121
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume837
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Mar 10 2017

    Keywords

    • supernovae: general
    • surveys

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics
    • Space and Planetary Science

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