The Environments of Core-Collapse Supernovae

The relationship between the evolution of massive stars and the resultant supernova classification at the end of their lives is an incomplete picture, mostly relying on high quality pre/post-explosion data for a limited number of nearby supernovae. Direct detections of Type II supernovae progenitors converge on red supergiant stars, but the progenitors and mass-loss mechanisms of stripped-envelope supernovae remain elusive. To remedy this, in this thesis I combine high spatial-resolution photometric data with integral-field unit spectroscopic data to resolve the stars and ionised gas in the environments of core-collapse supernovae. A series of indirect methods are applied and compared, resolving stellar populations and identifying H II regions in the galactic neighbourhoods of core-collapse supernovae. In doing so, essential progenitor properties can be constrained including stellar age, mass, extinction and metallicity. This way, the fortuitous nature of the direct observational approach is avoided. Application of the environmental analysis to a catalogue of local supernovae facilitates an investigation into potential correlations between environmental properties and the supernovae classification groups. This thesis highlights the complex relationship between stars, gas and dust and takes steps towards resolving degeneracies that have plagued previous studies of the environments of supernovae. With the rapidly rising rates of transient discoveries from large time-domain surveys, an environmental analysis can assist in uncovering the ‘progenitor tree’ of core collapse supernovae.