The colour variability of low-z SNe Ia is entirely explained by dust

Abstract

The relative importance of intrinsic colour variability of supernovae type Ia (SN Ia) versus dust-induced reddening remains an open question with important ramifications for understanding their environmental dependence, as well as for the validity of the traditionally employed Tripp linear correction for cosmological inference. We revisit this question in the light of two low-redshift, homogeneous datasets, the ZTF DR2 and Foundation DR1, which we analyse within the framework of the Bayesian hierarchical model Simple-BayeSN. We demonstrate both with simulation and on real data that traditional colour cuts, which remove highly reddened samples, induce a previously unrecognized selection effect, which may have biased previous conclusions on the origin of SN Ia colour variability. Once this is accounted for, we are able to explain the entirety of the colour--magnitude correlation as due to dust effects, with no need for an intrinsic colour correlation. This result is robust with respect to a host galaxy mass split and projected distance from the center of the host. Our findings imply that the traditional linear Tripp correction maintains an empirical validity, even though it should be ascribed to dust rather than intrinsic colour variation.