2006/01/31 by F. Förster, Christian Wolf, C. Wolf +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Physics #Progenitor #Progenitor cell #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Sample (material) #Star (game theory) #Supernova #Thermodynamics #Type (biology) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10258.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.368:1893-1904,2006 · accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2006/03/06 · openalex publication_date 2006/04/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We re-assess the question of a systematic time delay between the formation of the progenitor and its explosion in a Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) using the Hubble Higher-z Supernova Search sample. While a previous analysis indicated a significant time delay, with a most likely value of 3.4 Gyr, effectively ruling out all previously proposed progenitor models, our analysis shows that the time-delay estimate is dominated by systematic errors, in particular due to uncertainties in the star formation history (SFH). We find that none of the popular progenitor models under consideration can be ruled out with any significant degree of confidence. The inferred time delay is mainly determined by the peak in the assumed SFH. We show that, even with a much larger supernova sample, the time-delay distribution cannot be reliably reconstructed without better constraints on the SFH.