The type Ia supernova rate in radio and infrared galaxies from the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope supernova legacy survey

Abstract

We have combined the large SNIa database of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Supernova Legacy Survey and catalogs of galaxies with photometric redshifts, Very Large Array 1.4GHz radio sources, and Spitzer infrared sources. We present eight SNeIa in early-type host galaxies which have counterparts in the radio and infrared source catalogs. We find the SN Ia rate in subsets of radio and infrared early-type galaxies is ∼ 1-5 times the rate in all early-type galaxies, and that any enhancement is always ≲2σ. Rates in these subsets are consistent with predictions of the two-component "A+B" SN Ia rate model. Since infrared properties of radio SNIa hosts indicate dust-obscured star formation, we incorporate infrared star formation rates into the "A+B" model. We also show the properties of SNeIa in radio and infrared galaxies suggest the hosts contain dust and support a continuum of delay time distributions (DTDs) for SNeIa, although other DTDs cannot be ruled out based on our data. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.