Photospheric Magnitude Diagrams for Type II Supernovae: A Promising Tool
  to Compute Distances
  We develop an empirical color-based standardization for Type II supernovae
(SNe II), equivalent to the classical surface brightness method given in
Wesselink (1969). We calibrate it with SNe II with host galaxy distance
measured with Cepheids, and well-constrained shock breakout epoch and
extinction due to the host galaxy. We estimate the reddening with an analysis
of the B-V versus V-I color-color curves, similar to that of Natali et al.
(1994). With four SNe II meeting the above requirements, we build a
photospheric magnitude versus color diagram (similar to an HR diagram) with a
dispersion of 0.29 mag. We also show that when using time since shock breakout
instead of color as independent variable, the same standardization gives a
dispersion of 0.09 mag. Moreover, we show that the above time-based
standardization corresponds to the generalization of the standardized candle
method of Hamuy & Pinto (2002) for various epochs throughout the photospheric
phase. To test the new tool, we construct Hubble diagrams to different
subsamples of 50 low-redshift (cz<10^4 km s^-1) SNe II. For 13 SNe within the
Hubble flow (cz_CMB>3000 km s^-1) and with well-constrained shock breakout
epoch we obtain values of 68-69 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 for the Hubble constant, and an
mean intrinsic scatter of 0.12 mag or 6% in relative distances.
