The Latest Version of the Standardized Candle Method for Type II Supernovae

Abstract

I use the largest available sample of Type II plateau supernovae to examine the previously reported luminosity-velocity relation. This study confirms such relation which permits one to standardize the luminosities of these objects from a spectroscopic measurement of their envelope velocities, and use them as extragalactic distance indicators. The "standard candle method" (SCM) yields a Hubble diagram with a dispersion of 0.3 mag, which implies that the SCM produces distances with a precision of 15%. Using two nearby supernovae with Cepheid distances I find Ho=81+/-10 km/s/Mpc, which compares with Ho=74 derived from Type Ia supernovae.

10 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Carnegie Observatories Astrophysics Series, Vol. 2: Measuring and Modeling the Universe, ed. W. L. Freedman (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press)