The statistics and environments of hostless supernovae

Abstract

Transient surveys routinely detect supernovae (SNe) without obvious host galaxies. To understand the demographics of these ‘hostless’ SNe and to constrain the possible host properties, we identify 161 SNe reported to the Transient Name Server since 2016 that do not have hosts cataloged from pre-explosion wide-field galaxy surveys. Using forced aperture photometry, we detect excess flux around only 56 of these SNe. Both thermonuclear and core-collapse (CC) SNe are present in our sample. Compared to flux-limited SNe samples with known hosts, superluminous supernovae (SLSNe), particularly hydrogen-deficient SLSNe, are over-represented here relative to all other SNe types; among CC SNe, there is also a higher fraction of interacting SNe than non-interacting. On the low-luminosity side, seven SNe have host absolute magnitude upper limits fainter than Mg = −12, about 1 per cent of the Small Magellanic Cloud’s luminosity; the faintest limits are close to the luminosity of globular clusters or ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (Mg ≃ −8). Fitting multi-band forced photometry, 11 SNe have host stellar masses <106 M⊙ assuming quiescent hosts, and 13 SNe have host stellar masses <105 M⊙ assuming star-forming hosts. The spatial distribution of hostless SNe indicates that the majority are not associated with known galaxy groups and clusters, ruling out intracluster stellar light as the primary contributor of such SNe. Hostless Type Ia SNe tend to be more luminous and slow-fading than SNe Ia with known host galaxies, implying a hidden population of low-mass and star-forming hosts. We conclude that any undetected host galaxies are likely star-forming dwarfs in the field.