Investigating the Type Iax Supernova 2008ha

Type Iax Supernovae (SNe Iax) are a class of thermonuclear supernovae that, while similar to SNe Ia, are significantly less energetic than their SNe Ia counterparts. A particularly interesting specimen of SNe Iax is SN 2008ha since it remains among the least luminous SNe Iax yet discovered. The object’s low luminosity — and therefore, its low energy output — suggests that it could be a promising candidate for a SN Iax that did not fully unbind its progenitor star. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of SN 2008ha taken in 2012 across the F435W, F555W, F625W, and F814W filters reveal the existence of a point source (S1) close to the site of the supernova, with initial analyses of the source hypothesizing that it could be either a chance superposition of an unrelated object to the supernova, emission from the supernova itself, the luminous remnant of the white dwarf progenitor (WD), or a companion star to the WD. Follow up HST images of UGC 12682, the host galaxy of SN 2008ha, taken across a greater number of HST filter bands have been analyzed to determine which of the aforementioned four possibilities best represents the true nature of S1. The analysis of SN2008ha and S1 is the subject of this poster.