Host Galaxies of Type Ia Supernovae from the Nearby Supernova Factory
Résumé
The SN Ia cosmology approach hinges upon the ability to meaningfully compare the brightnesses of high redshift SNe to those at low redshift to derive accurate distances. This necessitates a deeper physical understanding of SNe Ia, especially the effects of progenitor age and metallicity whose distributions evolve with redshift. These progenitor properties are predicted to have significant impact on the properties of the resultant SN, making it important to examine the parent stellar populations of a well-studied sample of SNe Ia to investigate these effects. We will present the metallicity and star-formation activity of a sample of over 100 host galaxies from the Nearby Supernova Factory set of SNe Ia. With absolute magnitudes spanning the range -15 to -24 (SDSS i-band) and star-formation rates as high as 30 solar masses per year, this wide range of host properties is expected to encompass all SN Ia environments of significance for current and planned cosmological supernova surveys.