Studying how SN Ia rates (SNR) correlate with host galaxy properties is an important step in understanding the exact nature of SN Ia. Taking a sample of SNe and galaxies from the SDSS, we obtain the optimum parameter values for the A+B model for SNR, which states that SNR scale linearly with mass and star formation rate of the host, and compare them with previous work. We then proceed to show that the A+B model deviates very significantly from the SNR behaviour in our sample, demonstrate that no reasonable values for A and B could possibly match the observations, and investigate the possibility of a third-parameter correction to the generic A+B model. We find that several hypothesised models seem to match the distribution of SNRs in our sample; however, discriminating between them is a difficult task. We interpret the above to be an indicator that a new parameter may need to be taken into account when modelling SNR, and we present metallicity as a possible candidate for the new parameter. Also, by investigating decomposed bulge + disk components of the host
galaxies, we find that the spatial positions of SNe Ia are correlated with bulge luminosity, but not with galaxy total luminosity or disk luminosity. It is also shown that SNe do not preferentially occur in bulge-dominated galaxies. Our interpretation of these results is that SNe arise from a population having a spatial distribution which correlates very well with bulge luminosity, but does not usually contribute to bulge luminosity. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/3802 |
| Date | 11 January 2012 |
| Creators | Gao, Yan |
| Contributors | Pritchet, Christopher J. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds