Jet triggered Type Ia supernovae in radio-galaxies?

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a Type Ia supernova closely aligned with a radio jet in galaxy 3C 78, suggesting jets may play a role in triggering supernova explosions in radio galaxies.

Contribution

It provides the first observational evidence linking radio jets to supernova explosions, proposing a potential jet-triggering mechanism.

Findings

Supernova in 3C 78 is near the radio jet.

Historical data shows a significant association between jets and supernovae in radio galaxies.

Probability of random alignment is less than 5%.

Abstract

We report the serendipitous discovery of a supernova (SN) in the nearby radio-galaxy 3C 78. Observations obtained with the STIS spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope show, at a distance of 0.54 arcsec (300 pc) from the galaxy nucleus, a second bright source, not present in previous images. As this source was fortuitously covered by the spectrograph slit its spectrum was obtained and it is characteristic of a Type Ia SN. This SN is closely aligned with the radio-jet of 3C 78. Analysis of historical records shows that such a close association between jet and supernova occurred in 6 of the 14 reported SNe in radio-galaxies. The probability that this results from a random distribution of SN in the host galaxy is less than 0.05%. We then argue that jets might trigger supernova explosions.