The Large-Scale Environments of Type Ia Supernovae

Speaker: Michael Cooper (Arizona)
Date: Thursday, 18 June, 2009
Time: 11.30 am
Venue: VR Theatre

ABSTRACT: Both as high-energy astrophysical phenomena and as cosmological probes, type Ia supernovae are critical to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. For instance, feedback from supernovae directly influences the star-formation histories of galaxies at a wide range of masses, while also contributing significantly to the metal enrichment of the Universe. Despite much theoretical success in understanding the physics of type Ia events, recent measurements of the supernova Ia rate in local and intermediate-redshift galaxies have illustrated our remarkable ignorance regarding the nature of the type Ia progenitor population. In this talk, I will present results from a recent analysis of the large-scale environments of local type Ia supernovae, which provide an intriguing constraint on the properties of type Ia progenitors in star- forming galaxies.