A correlation between SN II metal line strength and host HII region oxygen abundance

Abstract

Dessart et al., demonstrated that type II supernova (SN II) model spectra present increasing metal line strength with increasing progenitor metallicity. To confront these models with observations, we obtained a large sample of SN II host HII region emission line spectroscopy. We show that inferred SN II host HII region metallicities have a statistically significant correlation with the strength of SN II metal lines, specifically FeII 5018A.

arXiv commentTo appear in proceedings of IAU FM 10: "Stellar Explosions in an Ever-Changing Environment"