Welcome to the webpage of the second workshop on “The future of SN host galaxy studies”, funded by EU/FP7-ERC grant no. [615929].

Rationale

Supernovae (SNe) are one of the most prominent transient events in astronomy. SNe trigger new star formation and drive cosmic chemical evolution. Despite their importance, the progenitors of SNe are still not very well characterized. Studies of the host galaxies/local environments of SNe can provide constraints on their progenitor properties, and help us understand specific transient features in relation to their environment.

Type Ia SNe (SNe Ia) are found to explode in both early and late type galaxies, and their presence in the former constrains (at least a fraction of) their progenitors to be evolved systems. However, the exact range of ages from which progenitors explode, the delay time distribution, is not well constrained. Neither is its relation to progenitor metallicity. Indeed, a strong debate exists as to whether SNe Ia arise from accretion onto a single white dwarf (WD) star, or from the coalescence of two WDs. These questions are particularly pertinent given the use of SNe Ia in many other areas of astrophysics. Their use as primary high redshift distance indicators led to the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe, while SNe Ia are the main iron producers in the Universe, hence driving chemical evolution of galaxies. The continued use of SNe Ia in these distinct fields demands a more precise understanding of their progenitors and explosions mechanisms. Investigating how SN Ia properties relate to their host galaxy properties can help she light on the origin of these explosions.

In the context of stellar evolution, core-collapse SNe signal the death throes of massive stars. During the last decade, there have been detections of SN progenitors in the pre-explosion archival Hubble Space Telescope images. This is by far the most powerful way to directly constrain the SN progenitors, however, only a handful of SN progenitors have been directly detected. Alternatively, one may perform a statistical study to the environments of SNe to derive useful constraints on the progenitors. Many works in the literature have used imaging and spectroscopy of their host galaxies, in particular their closest environment, to characterize properties such as the age and metallicity of the stellar populations, or the local star formation density. Those seminal works have been the base of Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) surveys of SN host galaxies like PISCO and AMUSING. These latter reference surveys will be the basis for much of the discussion in this workshop.

Venue

The workshop will be held at the School of Physics and Astronomy of Univertity of Southampton.

Hotel:

We have arranged for a block of rooms at the Highfield House Hotel (map/ webpage), just a few blocks from the meeting location, from 01/21 to 01/23 (3 nights). Please, do not contact the hotel directly. Instead, please email Ceris French at C.French(at)soton(dot)ac(dot)uk, she will make reservations.

Getting to the Hotel/University of Southampton:

There are several options for reaching the Hotel from Southampton Central Station (train station, in case you are coming from London). A taxi should cost ~£10, while Uber should be ~£8. From Southampton Airport, a taxi and Uber have the same price as from the train station. There is the Unilink bus line (https://www.unilinkbus.co.uk/) from the train station/Airport with stops near the hotel. The U1A, U1E, U1W (from the train station) and U1C (from the Airport) run every ~10 minutes (the weekends the frequency is every 20 min) from 6:00am to 12:00pm. The single ticket cost £2.

Participants (23 + 1)

Program

The day will start with a introductory talks about each of the three main topics of the workshop. We will have time for 30/20’ talks, guided discussion, and walking-working excursions (WWE). During the afternoon coffee we will select some topics for discussion in small groups during the WWE, and that will be later discussed in common.

TThe program can be found here

Talks:

Speaker1: Title1

Speaker2: Title2

Contact

Claudia Gutiérrez: C.P.Gutierrez-Avendano(at)soton(dot)ac(dot)uk

Lluís Galbany: lgalbany(at)ugr(dot)es