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14 September 2009
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Michael Cooper (Steward Observatory)
'The Large-Scale Environments of Type Ia Supernovae'
Both as high-energy astrophysical phenomena and as cosmological probes,
type Ia supernovae are critical to our understanding of galaxy formation and
evolution. For instance, feedback from supernovae directly influences the
star-formation histories of galaxies at a wide range of masses, while also
contributing significantly to the metal enrichment of the Universe. Despite much
theoretical success in understanding the physics of type Ia events, recent
measurements of the supernova Ia rate in local and intermediate-redshift
galaxies have illustrated our remarkable ignorance regarding the nature of
the type Ia progenitor population. In this talk, I will present results from a recent
analysis of the large-scale environments of local type Ia supernovae, which
provide an intriguing constraint on the properties of type Ia progenitors in
star-forming galaxies.
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