Constraining Type Ia Supernova Delay Time with Spatially Resolved Star Formation Histories

TL;DR

This study estimates the delay time distribution of Type Ia supernovae using spatially resolved host galaxy spectra, finding a power-law decay with a specific slope and delay time, and testing various models without significant preference for alternatives.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel method combining k-means clustering and earth mover's distance to analyze spatially resolved star formation histories for constraining SN Ia delay times.

Findings

Power-law decay slope s = -1.41 with uncertainties

Delay time τ ≈ 120 Myr with uncertainties

No significant support for alternative DTD models

Abstract

We present the delay time distribution (DTD) estimates of Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) using spatially resolved SN~Ia host galaxy spectra from MUSE and MaNGA. By employing a grouping algorithm based on k-means and earth mover's distances (EMD), we separated the host galaxy star formation histories (SFHs) into spatially distinct regions and used maximum likelihood method to constrain the DTD of SNe Ia progenitors. When a power-law model of the form $DTD(t)\propto t^{s} (t>\tau)$ is used, we found an SN rate decay slope $s=-1.41^{+0.32}_{-0.33}$ and a delay time $\tau=120^{+142}_{-83} Myr$ . Moreover, we tested other DTD models such as a broken power law model and a two-component power law model, and found no statistically significant support to these alternative models.