Keck Observations of the Young Metal-Poor Host Galaxy of the Super-Chandrasekhar-Mass Type Ia Supernova SN 2007if

Abstract

We present Keck LRIS spectroscopy and $g$-band photometry of the metal-poor, low-luminosity host galaxy of the super-Chandrasekhar mass Type Ia supernova SN 2007if. Deep imaging of the host reveals its apparent magnitude to be $m_g=23.15\pm 0.06$, which at the spectroscopically-measured redshift of $z_{helio}=0.07450\pm 0.00015$ corresponds to an absolute magnitude of $M_g=-14.45\pm 0.06$. Galaxy $g-r$ color constrains the mass-to-light ratio, giving a host stellar mass estimate of $\log (M_{\ast }/M_{\odot })=7.32\pm 0.17$. Balmer absorption in the stellar continuum, along with the strength of the 4000Å break, constrain the age of the dominant starburst in the galaxy to be $t_{\mathrm{burst}}=123_{-77}^{+165}$ Myr, corresponding to a main-sequence turn-off mass of $M/M_{\odot }=4.6_{-1.4}^{+2.6}$. Using the R${}_{23}$ method of calculating metallicity from the fluxes of strong emission lines, we determine the host oxygen abundance to be $12+\log (O/H{)}_{KK04}=8.01\pm 0.09$, significantly lower than any previously reported spectroscopically-measured Type Ia supernova host galaxy metallicity. Our data show that SN 2007if is very likely to have originated from a young, metal-poor progenitor.

15 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ

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