Low-Luminosity Type IIP Supernovae from the Zwicky Transient Facility Census of the Local Universe. I: Luminosity Function, Volumetric Rate

TL;DR

This study analyzes the luminosity function and volumetric rate of Type IIP supernovae, including low-luminosity variants, using the Zwicky Transient Facility data, providing the largest sample to date.

Contribution

It presents the largest volume-limited sample of Type IIP SNe, including low-luminosity types, and derives their rates and implications for stellar evolution.

Findings

Low-luminosity Type IIP SNe constitute about 19% of the Type IIP population.

The volumetric rate of Type IIP SNe is approximately 3.9 x 10^4 Gpc^-3 yr^-1.

Low-luminosity SNe alone cannot explain the discrepancy between core-collapse SN rates and star-formation rates.

Abstract

We present the luminosity function and volumetric rate of a sample of Type IIP supernovae (SNe) from the Zwicky Transient Facility Census of the Local Universe survey (CLU). This is the largest sample of Type IIP SNe from a systematic volume-limited survey to-date. The final sample includes 330 Type IIP SNe and 36 low-luminosity Type II (LLIIP) SNe with $M_{\textrm{r,peak}}>-16$ mag, which triples the literature sample of LLIIP SNe. The fraction of LLIIP SNe is $19^{+3}_{-4}\%$ of the total CLU Type IIP SNe population ($8^{+1}_{-2}\%$ of all core-collapse SNe). This implies that while LLIIP SNe likely represent the fate of core-collapse SNe of $8-12$ \Msun\ progenitors, they alone cannot account for the fate of all massive stars in this mass range. To derive an absolute rate, we estimate the ZTF pipeline efficiency as a function of the apparent magnitude and the local surface brightness. We derive a volumetric rate of $(3.9_{-0.4}^{+0.4}) \times 10^{4}\ \textrm{Gpc}^{-3}\ \textrm{yr}^{-1}$ for Type IIP SNe and $(7.3_{-0.6}^{+0.6}) \times 10^{3}\ \textrm{Gpc}^{-3}\ \textrm{yr}^{-1}$ for LLIIP SNe. Now that the rate of LLIIP SNe is robustly derived, the unresolved discrepancy between core-collapse SN rates and star-formation rates cannot be explained by LLIIP SNe alone.