Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 1992
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992phdt........40r&link_type=abstract
PhD Dissertation, California Univ. Berkeley, CA United States
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Emission Spectra, Populations, Starburst Galaxies, Supernovae, Stellar Spectra, Stellar Luminosity, Stellar Spectrophotometry, Image Analysis, Spectroscopic Analysis, Galactic Nuclei, H Alpha Line, Infrared Astronomy Satellite, H Beta Line, Imaging Techniques
Scientific paper
I conducted an optical search for supernovae in a sample of 142 starburst galaxies over the period December, 1988 to June, 1991. The sample was drawn from two sets of galaxies: a subset of the IRAS Bright Galaxy Sample, selected on the basis of their high far-infrared luminosities, and galaxies exhibited strong emission lines of hydrogen in their nuclei. All the galaxies were nearby (z less than or equal to 0.03) and relatively bright (mB less than or equal to 16). I used the one-meter Nickel telescope at Lick Observatory to obtain unfiltered or R-band CCD images with a limiting magnitude of mR = 18 of as many galaxies as possible on a single night at two-week intervals. Over the course of the survey, visual comparison of new and reference images revealed a total of five supernovae in the sample, each of which occurred outside its host galaxy's nucleus. Using a set of template light curves for each type of supernova, in both V and R bandpasses, which I constructed from the literature, I determine supernova rates in the extra-nuclear regions to be 0.7h2 SNU for type Ia, 0.7h2 SNU for type Ib/c, and approximately 0.6h2 SNU for type 2, with large uncertainties but upper limits of 2.2h2, 2.5h2 and 1.7h2 SNU, respectively. These rates are similar to those measured in 'normal' galaxies. Because supernovae in the nuclei of galaxies are difficult to detect by comparing two images by eye, I performed aperture photometry on the nucleus of each image and searched the resulting light curves for increases in brightness caused by supernovae. I found no evidence for a supernova-induced brightening in any nucleus, and, with a few reasonable assumptions, can place upper limits of 9h2, 12h2 and 8h2 SNU on the rates of type Ia, Ib/c and 2 supernovae inside the nuclei. I derive relationships between stellar population, supernova rate and flux in Balmer emission lines for a number of population models; for the 34 galaxies in the sample with measured nuclear H-alpha and H-beta fluxes, I apply the relationships to place constraints on their stellar populations. In an appendix, I describe my contributions to the Berkeley Automatic Imaging Telescope.
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