Published October 2025 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

ZTF SN Ia DR2: Cosmology-independent constraints on Type Ia supernova standardisation from supernova siblings

  • 1. ROR icon University of Cambridge
  • 2. ROR icon Stockholm University
  • 3. ROR icon University of Lyon System
  • 4. ROR icon Lancaster University
  • 5. ROR icon Trinity College Dublin
  • 6. ROR icon Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • 7. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 8. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 9. ROR icon Institute of Space Sciences
  • 10. ROR icon Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya
  • 11. ROR icon Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies
  • 12. ROR icon University of Clermont Auvergne
  • 13. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 14. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 15. ROR icon University of Minnesota

Abstract

Understanding Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and the empirical standardisation relations that make them excellent distance indicators is vital to improving cosmological constraints. SN Ia ‘siblings, i.e. two or more SNe Ia in the same host or parent galaxy, offer a unique way to infer the standardisation relations and their scatter across the population. We analysed a sample of 25 SN Ia pairs observed homogeneously by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to infer the SNe Ia light curve width-luminosity and colour-luminosity parameters, α and β. Using the pairwise constraints from siblings, which allow for a scatter in the standardisation relations, we found α = 0.218 ± 0.055 and β = 3.084 ± 0.312, respectively, with a dispersion in α and β of ≤0.195 and ≤0.923, respectively, at a 95% confidence level. While the median dispersion is large, the values within ∼1σ are consistent with no dispersion. Hence, fitting for a single global standardisation relation, we found α = 0.228 ± 0.029 and β = 3.160 ± 0.191. We also found a very small intrinsic scatter of the siblings sample σint ≤ 0.10 mag at a 95% confidence level compared to σint = 0.22 ± 0.04 mag when computing the scatter using the Hubble residuals without comparing them as siblings. When comparing to large samples used in cosmological measurements, we found an α that is ∼2-3 σ higher, while the β values are consistent. The high α is driven by low x1 pairs, potentially suggesting that the slow and fast declining SN Ia have different slopes for the width-luminosity relation. We found no difference in α and β when dividing the sample by host galaxy mass. The finding of a higher α with increased statistics can be confirmed or refuted through upcoming time-domain surveys. If confirmed, this finding can improve the cosmological inference from SNe Ia and be used to infer properties of the progenitors for subpopulations of SNe Ia.

Copyright and License

© The Authors 2025. Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Acknowledgement

SD acknowledges support from the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship under grant ID 890695, UKRI Horizon Europe Underwriting EP/Z000475/1 and a Junior Research Fellowship at Lucy Cavendish College. This work has been supported by the research project grant “Understanding the Dynamic Universe” funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation under Dnr KAW 2018.0067. AG acknowledges support from Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Research Council, project 2020-03444. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n°759194 – USNAC) L.G. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) 10.13039/501100011033, and the European Social Fund (ESF) “Investing in your future” under the 2019 Ramón y Cajal program RYC2019-027683-I and the PID2020-115253GA-I00 HOSTFLOWS project, from Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) under the PIE project 20215AT016, and the program Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M, and from the Departament de Recerca i Universitats de la Generalitat de Catalunya through the 2021-SGR-01270 grant. JHT and KM acknowledge support from EU H2020 ERC grant no. 758638. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. AST-1440341 and AST-2034437 and a collaboration including partners Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, IN2P3, University of Warwick, Ruhr University Bochum, Northwestern University and former partners the University of Washington, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. The Spectral Energy Distribution Machine is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1106171. The ZTF forced-photometry service was funded under the Heising-Simons Foundation grant #12540303 (PI: Graham). The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, through both the Data-Driven Investigator Program and a dedicated grant, provided critical funding for SkyPortal.

Data Availability

All data associated with this publication is made available via github at https://github.com/ZwickyTransientFacility/ztfcosmo.git as part of the ZTF second data release of Type Ia supernovae.

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Additional details

Related works

Is new version of
Discussion Paper: arXiv:2406.01434 (arXiv)
Is supplemented by
Dataset: https://github.com/ZwickyTransientFacility/ztfcosmo.git (URL)

Funding

Marie Curie
890695
UK Research and Innovation
EP/Z000475/1
University of Cambridge
Lucy Cavendish College -
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
KAW 2018.0067
Swedish Research Council
2020-03444
European Research Council
759194
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2020-001058-M
Agencia Estatal de Investigación
PID2020-115253GA-I00
European Commission
Ramón y Cajal Program RYC2019-027683-I
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
20215AT016
European Research Council
758638
National Science Foundation
AST-1440341
National Science Foundation
AST-2034437
National Science Foundation
1106171
Heising-Simons Foundation
12540303
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Dates

Accepted
2025-03-26
Available
2025-10-24
Published online

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Zwicky Transient Facility, Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
Publication Status
Published