A Blast from the Pasture: Studying the environment of AT 2018cow with MUSE

Abstract

AT 2018cow was the nearest and best studied example of a new breed of extra-galactic, luminous and rapidly-evolving transient. Both the progenitor systems and explosion mechanisms of these rapid transients remain a mystery - the energetics, spectral signatures, and timescales make them challenging to interpret in established classes of supernovae and tidal disruption events. The rich, multi-wavelength data-set of AT 2018cow has still left several interpretations viable to explain the nature of this event. In this paper we analyse integral-field spectroscopic data of the host galaxy, CGCG 137-068, to compare environmental constraints with leading progenitor models. We find the explosion site of AT 2018cow to be very typical of core-collapse supernovae (known to form from stars with MZAMS ~8-25M), and infer a young stellar population age at the explosion site of few times 10Myr, at slightly sub-solar metallicity. When comparing to expectations for exotic intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) tidal disruption events,we find no evidence for a potential host system of the IMBH. In particular, there are no abrupt changes in metallicity or kinematics in the vicinity of the explosion site, arguing against the presence of a distinct host system. The proximity of AT 2018cow to strong star-formation in the host galaxy makes us favour a massive stellar progenitor for this event.

arXiv commentAccepted to MNRAS, 10 pages

References in corpus (72)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence
• [O III]/[N II] as an Abundance Indicator at High Redshift
• MILES: A Medium resolution INT Library of Empirical Spectra
• The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges and Determinations of their Intrinsic Scatter
• ATLAS: A High-Cadence All-Sky Survey System
• The Pan-STARRS1 Photometric System
• Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis Version 2.1: construction, observational verification and new results
• The MUSE second-generation VLT instrument
• Long gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae have different environments
• Automated data reduction workflows for astronomy
• Pulsational pair instability as an explanation for the most luminous supernovae
• Luminous Supernovae
• The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 1
• A Continuum of H- to He-Rich Tidal Disruption Candidates With a Preference for E+A Galaxies
• Super Luminous Ic Supernovae: catching a magnetar by the tail
• Rapidly-Evolving and Luminous Transients from Pan-STARRS1
• The Fifteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release of MaNGA Derived Quantities, Data Visualization Tools and Stellar Library
• ZAP -- Enhanced PCA Sky Subtraction for Integral Field Spectroscopy
• Bolometric light curves and explosion parameters of 38 stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae
• A Relativistic Type Ibc Supernova Without a Detected Gamma-ray Burst
• Chemical abundances in high-redshift galaxies: A powerful new emission line diagnostic
• The Cosmic BPT Diagram: Confronting Theory with Observations
• An embedded X-ray source shines through the aspherical AT2018cow: revealing the inner workings of the most luminous fast-evolving optical transients
• Hydrogen-Poor Superluminous Supernovae and Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts Have Similar Host Galaxies
• The Cow: discovery of a luminous, hot and rapidly evolving transient
• Spatially-Resolved Spectroscopic Properties of Low-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Fast, Luminous Ultraviolet Transient AT2018cow: Extreme Supernova, or Disruption of a Star by an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole?
• The Spectral SN-GRB Connection: Systematic Spectral Comparisons between Type Ic Supernovae, and broad-lined Type Ic Supernovae with and without Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Integral field spectroscopy of a sample of nearby galaxies: II. Properties of the H ii regions
• The Swift GRB Host Galaxy Legacy Survey - II. Rest-Frame NIR Luminosity Distribution and Evidence for a Near-Solar Metallicity Threshold
• Early-time light curves of Type Ib/c supernovae from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey
• Cosmic evolution and metal aversion in super-luminous supernova host galaxies
• ASASSN-15oi: A Rapidly Evolving, Luminous Tidal Disruption Event at 216 Mpc
• The environment of the binary neutron star merger GW170817
• Rapidly evolving transients in the Dark Energy Survey
• AT2018cow: a luminous millimeter transient
• VLT Kinematics for omega Centauri: Further Support for a Central Black Hole
• Characterising the environments of supernovae with MUSE
• PISCO: The Pmas/ppak Integral-field Supernova hosts COmpilation
• Thermal and non-thermal emission from circumstellar interaction
• Analysis of broad-lined Type Ic supernovae from the (intermediate) Palomar Transient Factory
• Limits on intermediate-mass black holes in six Galactic globular clusters with integral-field spectroscopy
• A Hubble Space Telescope Survey of the Host Galaxies of Superluminous Supernovae
• The host galaxies and explosion sites of long-duration gamma ray bursts: Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared imaging
• Superluminous supernova progenitors have a half-solar metallicity threshold
• The AMUSING++ Nearby Galaxy Compilation: I. Full Sample Characterization and Galactic--Scale Outflows Selection
• Swift spectra of AT2018cow: A White Dwarf Tidal Disruption Event?
• Rapidly Rising Transients from Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Transient Survey
• Constraints on core-collapse supernova progenitors from explosion site integral field spectroscopy
• Hot gas around SN 1998bw: Inferring the progenitor from its environment
• Diversity of common envelope jets supernovae and the fast transient AT2018cow
• X-ray Swift observations of SN 2018cow
• The Host Galaxies of Fast-Ejecta Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Signatures of Circumstellar Interaction in the Unusual Transient AT2018cow
• The superluminous supernova SN 2017egm in the nearby galaxy NGC 3191: a metal-rich environment can support a typical SLSN evolution
• Investigating the diversity of supernovae type Iax: A MUSE and NOT spectroscopic study of their environments
• Highly Luminous Supernovae associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts I.: GRB 111209A/SN 2011kl in the Context of Stripped-Envelope and Superluminous Supernovae
• Indication for an intermediate-mass black hole in the globular cluster NGC 5286 from kinematics
• The MUSE view of the host galaxy of GRB 100316D
• Core-collapse supernovae ages and metallicities from emission-line diagnostics of nearby stellar populations
• Star Cluster Ecology: VII The evolution of young dense star clusters containing primordial binaries
• AT 2018cow VLBI: No Long-Lived Relativistic Outflow
• The luminous and rapidly evolving SN 2018bcc: Clues toward the origin of Type Ibn SNe from the Zwicky Transient Facility
• HI 21cm mapping of the host galaxy of AT2018cow: a fast-evolving luminous transient within a ring of high column density gas
• The Absolute Rate of LGRB Formation
• On the nature of the unusual transient AT 2018cow from HI observations of its host galaxy
• ALMA observations of molecular gas in the host galaxy of AT2018cow

Cited by in corpus (24)

• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• The Type Icn SN 2021csp: Implications for the Origins of the Fastest Supernovae and the Fates of Wolf-Rayet Stars
• Circumstellar Interaction Powers the Light Curves of Luminous Rapidly Evolving Optical Transients
• The distribution of star formation in galactic bars as seen with H$\alpha$ and stacked GALEX UV imaging
• Fast Optical Transients from Stellar-Mass Black Hole Tidal Disruption Events in Young Star Clusters
• The Host Galaxies of Rapidly Evolving Transients in the Dark Energy Survey
• The Peculiar Transient AT2018cow: A Possible Origin of A Type Ibn/IIn Supernova
• A common envelope jets supernova (CEJSN) impostor scenario for fast blue optical transients
• An environmental analysis of the Type Ib SN 2019yvr and the possible presence of an inflated binary companion
• A hot and luminous source at the site of the fast transient AT2018cow at 2-3 years after its explosion
• Minutes-duration Optical Flares with Supernova Luminosities
• An environmental analysis of the fast transient AT2018cow and implications for its progenitor and late-time brightness
• Toward a better understanding of supernova environments: a study of SNe 2004dg and 2012P in NGC 5806 with HST and MUSE
• Late-time Hubble Space Telescope Observations of AT 2018cow. II. Evolution of a UV bright Underlying Source 2--4 Yr Post-discovery
• A possible 250-second X-ray quasi-periodicity in the fast blue optical transient AT2018cow
• On the nature of Fast Blue Optical Transients
• Late-time Hubble Space Telescope Observations of AT 2018cow. I. Further Constraints on the Fading Prompt Emission and Thermal Properties 50--60 Days Post-discovery
• Real-time Discovery of AT2020xnd: A Fast, Luminous Ultraviolet Transient with Minimal Radioactive Ejecta
• Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients as "Failed" Gravitational-wave Sources: Helium Core$-$Black Hole Mergers Following Delayed Dynamical Instability
• Supernova environments in J-PLUS. Normalized Cumulative Rank distributions and stellar population synthesis, combining narrow- and broad-band filters
• The X-ray and Radio Loud Fast Blue Optical Transient AT2020mrf: Implications for an Emerging Class of Engine-Driven Massive Star Explosions
• MUSE IFU observations of galaxies hosting Tidal Disruption Events
• A study on late time UV-emission in core collapse supernovae and the implications for the peculiar transient AT2018cow
• Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients and Type Ibn/Icn SNe from Wolf-Rayet/Black Hole Mergers