paper

Classifications of the Host Galaxies of Supernovae, Set III

arXiv:astro-ph/0504668 · doi:10.1086/431435

Abstract

A homogeneous sample comprising host galaxies of 604 recent supernovae, including 212 objects discovered primarily in 2003 and 2004, has been classified on the David Dunlap Observatory system. Most SN 1991bg-like SNe Ia occur in E and E/Sa galaxies, whereas the majority of SN 1991T-like SNe Ia occur in intermediate-type galaxies. This difference is significant at the 99.9% level. As expected, all types of SNe II are rare in early-type galaxies, whereas normal SNe Ia occur in all Hubble types. This difference is significant at the 99.99% level. A small number of SNe II in E galaxies might be due to galaxy classification errors, or to a small young-population component in these mainly old objects. No significant difference is found between the distributions over Hubble type of SNe Ibc and SNe II. This confirms that both of these types of objects have similar (massive) progenitors. The present data show that, in order to understand the dependence of supernova type on host-galaxy population, it is more important to obtain accurate morphological classifications than it is to increase the size of the data sample.

arXiv commentAccepted for publishing in PASP

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