No Arabic abstract
We aim to present 70 spectra of 68 new high-redshift type Ia supernovae (SNeIa) measured at ESOs VLT during the final two years of operation (2006-2008) of the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). We use the full five year SNLS VLT spectral set to investigate a possible spectral evolution of SNeIa populations with redshift and study spectral properties as a function of lightcurve fit parameters and the mass of the host-galaxy. Reduction and extraction are based on both IRAF standard tasks and our own reduction pipeline. Redshifts are estimated from host-galaxy lines whenever possible or alternatively from supernova features. We used the spectrophotometric SNIa model SALT2 combined with a set of galaxy templates that model the host-galaxy contamination to assess the type Ia nature of the candidates. We identify 68 new SNeIa with redshift ranging from z=0.207 to z=0.98 (<z>=0.62). Each spectrum is presented individually along with its best-fit SALT2 model. The five year dataset contains 209 spectra corresponding to 192 SNeIa identified at the VLT. We also publish the redshifts of other candidates (host galaxies or other transients) whose spectra were obtained at the same time as the spectra of live SNe Ia. Using the full VLT SNeIa sample, we build composite spectra around maximum light with cuts in color, lightcurve shape parameter (stretch), host-galaxy mass and redshift. We find that high-z SNeIa are bluer, brighter and have weaker intermediate mass element absorption lines than their low-z counterparts at a level consistent with what is expected from selection effects. We also find a flux excess in the range [3000-3400] A for SNeIa in low mass host-galaxies or with locally blue U-V colors, and suggest that the UV flux (or local color) may be used in future cosmological studies as a third standardization parameter in addition to stretch and color.
We present a progress report on a project to derive the evolution of the volumetric supernova Type Ia rate from the Supernova Legacy Survey. Our preliminary estimate of the rate evolution divides the sample from Neill et al. (2006) into two redshift bins: 0.2 < z < 0.4, and 0.4 < z < 0.6. We extend this by adding a bin from the sample analyzed in Sullivan et al. (2006) in the range 0.6 < z < 0.75 from the same time period. We compare the derived trend with previously published rates and a supernova Type Ia production model having two components: one component associated closely with star formation and an additional component associated with host galaxy mass. Our observed trend is consistent with this model, which predicts a rising SN Ia rate out to at least z=2.
The Supernova Cosmology Project has conducted the `See Change programme, aimed at discovering and observing high-redshift (1.13 $leq$ z $leq$ 1.75) Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We used multi-filter Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of massive galaxy clusters with sufficient cadence to make the observed SN Ia light curves suitable for a cosmological probe of dark energy at z > 0.5. This See Change sample of SNe Ia with multi-colour light curves will be the largest to date at these redshifts. As part of the See Change programme, we obtained ground-based spectroscopy of each discovered transient and/or its host galaxy. Here we present Very Large Telescope (VLT) spectra of See Change transient host galaxies, deriving their redshifts, and host parameters such as stellar mass and star formation rate. Of the 39 See Change transients/hosts that were observed with the VLT, we successfully determined the redshift for 26, including 15 SNe Ia at z > 0.97. We show that even in passive environments, it is possible to recover secure redshifts for the majority of SN hosts out to z = 1.5. We find that with typical exposure times of 3 - 4 hrs on an 8m-class telescope we can recover ~75% of SN Ia redshifts in the range of 0.97 < z < 1.5. Furthermore, we show that the combination of HST photometry and VLT spectroscopy is able to provide estimates of host galaxy stellar mass that are sufficiently accurate for use in a mass-step correction in the cosmological analysis.
We analyse spectroscopic measurements of 122 type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) with z<0.09 discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory, focusing on the properties of the Si II 6355 and Ca II `near-infrared triplet absorptions. We examine the velocities of the photospheric Si II 6355, and the velocities and strengths of the photospheric and high-velocity Ca II, in the context of the stellar mass (Mstellar) and star-formation rate (SFR) of the SN host galaxies, as well as the position of the SN within its host. We find that SNe Ia with faster Si II 6355 tend to explode in more massive galaxies, with the highest velocity events only occuring in galaxies with Mstellar > 3*10^9 solar mass. We also find some evidence that these highest velocity SNe Ia explode in the inner regions of their host galaxies, similar to the study of Wang et al. (2013), although the trend is not as significant in our data. We show that these trends are consistent with some SN Ia spectral models, if the host galaxy stellar mass is interpreted as a proxy for host galaxy metallicity. We study the strength of the high-velocity component of the Ca II near-IR absorption, and show that SNe Ia with stronger high-velocity components relative to photospheric components are hosted by galaxies with low stellar mass, blue colour, and a high sSFR. Such SNe are therefore likely to arise from the youngest progenitor systems. This argues against a pure orientation effect being responsible for high-velocity features in SN Ia spectra and, when combined with other studies, is consistent with a scenario where high-velocity features are related to an interaction between the SN ejecta and circumstellar medium (CSM) local to the SN.
Brighter type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) prefer less massive hosts with higher star formation. This bias is over-corrected for SNe Ia standardized using the standard Tripp relation, resulting in a step-like dependence of standardized distance on host properties. Using the PISCO supernova host sample and SDSS, GALEX, and 2MASS photometry, we compare host galaxy stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) estimates from different observation and fitting techniques and their impact on the mass step and sSFR step biases. The step size for FAST++ mass estimates was $-0.04pm0.02$ mag for FAST++ and STARLIGHT, increasing by 0.02 mag for ZPEG. UV information had no effect on measured mass step size or location. Our small sample sizes resulted in all mass step size uncertainties being within 2$sigma$ significance of a zero step due. Regardless, mass step sizes were all consistently within 1$sigma$ of each other. Specific SFR (sSFR) step sizes are $0.05pm0.03$ mag (H$alpha$) and $0.06pm0.03$ mag (UV) for a reduced 51 host sample with SDSS and GALEX coverage, with 50% increase in step size uncertainties. Step location was determined by mass sample used to normalize sSFR. The step size reduces by 0.04 mag with an unconstrained location using all available 73 hosts with H$alpha$ measurements. Despite reduced sample sizes, we find no evidence that observation or fitting technique choice drives mass step measurement, but cannot conclude the same for the sSFR step. Further work will focus on differing star formation epochs and dust attenuation corrections effects on the sSFR bias.
Using Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) observations, we identify a pair of sibling Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), i.e., hosted by the same galaxy at z = 0.0541. They exploded within 200 days from each other at a separation of $0.6^{} $ corresponding to a projected distance of only 0.6 kpc. Performing SALT2 light curve fits to the gri ZTF photometry, we show that for these equally distant standardizable candles, there is a difference of 2 magnitudes in their rest frame B-band peaks, and the fainter SN has a significantly red SALT2 colour $c = 0.57 pm$ 0.04, while the stretch values $x_1$ of the two SNe are similar, suggesting that the fainter SN is attenuated by dust in the interstellar medium of the host galaxy. We use these measurements to infer the SALT2 colour standardization parameter, $beta$ = 3.5 $pm$ 0.3, independent of the underlying cosmology and Malmquist bias. Assuming the colour excess is entirely due to dust, the result differs by $2sigma$ from the average Milky-Way total-to-selective extinction ratio, but is in good agreement with the colour-brightness corrections empirically derived from the most recent SN Ia Hubble-Lemaitre diagram fits. Thus we suggest that SN siblings, which will increasingly be discovered in the coming years, can be used to probe the validity of the colour and lightcurve shape corrections using in SN Ia cosmology while avoiding important systematic effects in their inference from global multi-parameter fits to inhomogeneous data-sets, and also help constrain the role of interstellar dust in SN Ia cosmology.