A correlation between SN II metal line strength and host HII region oxygen abundance

TL;DR

This study finds a statistically significant correlation between the strength of metal lines in SN II spectra and the oxygen abundance in their host HII regions, supporting model predictions about metallicity effects.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence linking SN II metal line strength to host HII region metallicity, validating theoretical models.

Findings

SN II metal line strength correlates with host HII region oxygen abundance.

FeII 5018A line strength increases with metallicity.

Supports models predicting metallicity dependence of SN II spectra.

Abstract

Dessart et al., demonstrated that type II supernova (SN II) model spectra present increasing metal line strength with increasing progenitor metallicity. To confront these models with observations, we obtained a large sample of SN II host HII region emission line spectroscopy. We show that inferred SN II host HII region metallicities have a statistically significant correlation with the strength of SN II metal lines, specifically FeII 5018A.