H Ii Region Metallicity Constraints near the Site of the Strongly Lensed Supernova “sn Refsdal” at Redshift 1.49

We present the local H II region metallicity near the site of the recently discovered multiply lensed supernova (SN; “SN Refsdal”) at redshift 1.49. “SN Refsdal” is located at the outer spiral arm (∼7 kpc) of the lensed host galaxy, which we previously reported to exhibit a steep negative galactocentric metallicity gradient. Based on our updated near-infrared integral field spectroscopic data, the gas-phase metallicity averaged in an intrinsic radius of ∼550 pc surrounding an H II region ∼200 pc away from the SN site is 12 + log(O/H) ⩽ 8.67 PP04N2 . The metallicity averaged over nine H II regions at similar galactocentric distances (∼5–7 kpc) as “SN Refsdal” is constrained to be 12 + log (O/H) ⩽ 8.11 PP04N2 . Given the fortuitous discovery of “SN Refsdal” in an advantageously lensed face-on spiral, this is the first observational constraint on the local metallicity environment of an SN site at redshift > z 1.