Evidence for strong progenitor age dependence of type Ia supernova luminosity standardization process

Abstract

ABSTRACT Supernova (SN) cosmology is based on the assumption that the width–luminosity relation (WLR) and the colour–luminosity relation (CLR) in the type Ia SN luminosity standardization would not show absolute magnitude differences with progenitor age. Unlike this expectation, recent age datings of stellar populations in host galaxies have shown significant correlations between progenitor age and Hubble residual (HR). Here, we show that this correlation originates from a strong progenitor age dependence of the zero-points of the WLR and the CLR, in the sense that SNe from younger progenitors are fainter each at given light-curve parameters x1 and c. This 4.6σ result is reminiscent of Baade’s discovery of the zero-point variation of the Cepheid period–luminosity relation with age, and, as such, causes a serious systematic bias with redshift in SN cosmology. Other host properties show substantially smaller and insignificant offsets in the WLR and CLR for the same data set. We illustrate that the differences between the high-$z$ and low-$z$ SNe in the WLR and CLR, and in HR after the standardization, are fully comparable to those between the correspondingly young and old SNe at intermediate redshift, indicating that the observed dimming of SNe with redshift may well be an artefact of overcorrection in the luminosity standardization. When this systematic bias with redshift is properly taken into account, there is little evidence left for an accelerating universe, in discordance with other probes, urging the follow-up investigations with larger samples at different redshift bins.