Oral Presentation Astronomical Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting including HWWS 2013

SN 2012fr: A Luminous Normal Type Ia Supernova in NGC 1365 (#46)

Michael J. Childress 1
  1. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

SN 2012fr was a luminous normal Type Ia supernova in the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365.  We obtained 65 optical spectra of SN 2012fr from nine telescopes spanning four continents over a two month period beginning two days after the date of explosion.  High-velocity features at early epochs and a plateau in the velocity of intermediate mass elements at late epochs indicate complex layering of the ejected material.  Absorption features in the maximum light spectrum indicate SN 2012fr lies on the borders between "subclasses" of Type Ia supernovae proposed in two recent classification schemes.  Finally, distance measurements to NGC 1365 obtained as part of the HST Key Project on the extragalactic distance scale enable the use of SN 2012fr as a fundamental calibrator for measuring the Hubble constant.