A Central Excess of Stripped-Envelope Supernovae within Disturbed Galaxies

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This paper presents an analysis of core-collapse supernova distributions in isolated and interacting host galaxies, paying close attention to the selection effects involved in conducting host galaxy supernova studies.

• When taking into account all of the selection effects within our host galaxy sample, we draw the following conclusions: i) Within interacting, or 'disturbed', systems there is a real, and statistically significant, increase in the fraction of stripped-envelope supernovae in the central regions.
• A discussion into what may cause this increased fraction, compared to the more common type IIP supernovae, and type II supernovae without sub-classifications, is presented.
• Selection effects are shown not to drive this result, and so we propose that this study provides direct evidence for a high-mass weighted initial mass function within the central regions of disturbed galaxies.