It's Dust: Solving the Mysteries of the Intrinsic Scatter and Host-galaxy Dependence of Standardized Type Ia Supernova Brightnesses

The use of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as cosmological tools has motivated significant effort to understand what drives the intrinsic scatter of SN Ia distance modulus residuals after standardization, characterize the distribution of SN Ia colors, and explain why properties of the host galaxies of the SNe correlate with SN Ia distance modulus residuals. We use a compiled sample of similar to 1450 spectroscopically confirmed photometric light curves of SNe Ia and propose a solution to these three problems simultaneously that also explains an empirical 11 sigma detection of the dependence of Hubble residual scatter on SN Ia color. We introduce a physical model of color where intrinsic SN Ia colors with a relatively weak correlation with luminosity are combined with extrinsic dust-like colors (E(B - V)) with a wide range of extinction parameter values (R-V). This model captures the observed trends of Hubble residual scatter and indicates that the dominant component of SN Ia intrinsic scatter is variation in R-V. We also find that the recovered E(B - V) and R-V distributions differ based on global host-galaxy stellar mass, and this explains the observed correlation (gamma) between mass and Hubble residuals seen in past analyses, as well as an observed 4.5 sigma dependence of gamma on SN Ia color. This finding removes any need to ascribe different intrinsic luminosities to different progenitor systems. Finally, we measure biases in the equation of state of dark energy (w) up to divide Delta w divide = 0.04 by replacing previous models of SN color with our dust-based model; this bias is larger than any systematic uncertainty in previous SN Ia cosmological analyses.

Automated summary

This study used a sample of approximately 1450 spectroscopically confirmed photometric light curves of SNe Ia and proposed a solution that addresses the intrinsic scatter of SN Ia distance modulus residuals, the distribution of SN Ia colors, and the correlation between properties of host galaxies and SN Ia distance modulus residuals. The results indicate that the main component of SN Ia intrinsic scatter is the variation in R-V, and that the distributions of recovered E(B - V) and R-V differ based on global host-galaxy stellar mass. This finding removes the need for assigning different intrinsic luminosities to different progenitor systems and has significant implications for the study of dark energy.