Extinction and Radial Distribution of Supernova Properties in Their Parent Galaxies

Abstract

We use a Monte Carlo technique and assume spatial distributions of dust and supernova (SN) progenitors in a simple model of a characteristic SN-producing disk galaxy to explore the effects of extinction on the radial distributions of SN properties in their parent galaxies. The model extinction distributions and projected radial number distributions are presented for various SN types. Even though the model has no core-collapse SNe within 3 kpc of the center, a considerable fraction of the core-collapse SNe are projected into the inner regions of inclined parent galaxies owing to their small vertical scale height. The model predicts that because of extinction, SNe that are projected into the central regions should, on average, appear dimmer and have a much larger magnitude scatter than those in the outer regions. In particular, the model predicts a strong deficit of bright core-collapse events inside a projected radius of a few kiloparsec. Such a deficit is found to be present in the observations. It appears to be a natural consequence of the characteristic spatial distributions of dust and core-collapse SNe in galaxies, and it leads us to offer an alternative to the conventional interpretation of the Shaw effect.