Distribution of supernovae relative to spiral arms and H II regions

Abstract

We have studied the association of supernovae in spiral galaxies withsites of recent stars formation -- sprial arms and H II regions. It isshown that supernovae (SNe) of Types Ia, Ib, and II exhibitconcentration to spiral arms and their distributions over the distanceto the nearest spiral arm do not differ significantly. This result isconfirmed by a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test comparison with the distancedistributions, expected if SNe are distributed randomly inside the modelgalaxy. SNe of types Ib and II show a strong concentration towards H IIregions, while distribution of SNe Ia can be explained by chancesuperposition. All studied distributions of SNe Ib and II show strikingsimilarity, which suggests that their progenitors are massive stars withsimilar ages and initial masses. The association of SNe Ia with spiralarms suggests that their progenitors in spiral galaxies are likely to beintermediate mass stars.