2024/04/16 by Ness Mayker Chen, Adam K. Leroy, Chen, Ness Mayker +47
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.10762
openalex publication_date 2024/04/16 · openalex created_date 2024/04/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a statistical analysis of the local, approximately 50-100 pc scale, H-alpha emission at the locations of recent (less than 125 years) supernovae (SNe) in nearby star-forming galaxies. Our sample consists of 32 SNe in 10 galaxies that are targets of the PHANGS-MUSE survey. We find that 41% (13/32) of these SNe occur coincident with a previously identified HII region. For comparison, HII regions cover 32% of the area within 1 kpc of any recent SN. Contrasting this local covering fraction with the fraction of SNe coincident with HII regions, we find a statistical excess of 7.6% +/- 8.7% of all SNe to be associated with HII regions. This increases to an excess of 19.2% +/- 10.4% when considering only core-collapse SNe. These estimates appear to be in good agreement with qualitative results from new, higher resolution HST H-alpha imaging, which also suggest many CCSNe detonate near but not in HII regions. Our results appear consistent with the expectation that only a modest fraction of stars explode during the first 5 Myr of the life of a stellar population, when H-alpha emission is expected to be bright. Of the HII region associated SNe, 8% (11/13) also have associated detected CO(2-1) emission, indicating the presence of molecular gas. The HII region associated SNe have typical Av extinctions approximately equal to 1 mag, consistent with a significant amount of pre-clearing of gas from the region before the SNe explode.