AT 2018cow was the nearest and best studied example of a new breed of extra-galactic , luminous and rapidly-evolving transient .
Both the progenitor systems and explosion mechanisms of these rapid transients remain a mystery – the energetics , spectral signatures , and timescales make them challenging to interpret in established classes of supernovae and tidal disruption events .
The rich , multi-wavelength data-set of AT 2018cow has still left several interpretations viable to explain the nature of this event .
In this paper we analyse integral-field spectroscopic data of the host galaxy , CGCG 137-068 , to compare environmental constraints with leading progenitor models .
We find the explosion site of AT 2018cow to be very typical of core-collapse supernovae ( known to form from stars with M _ { \textrm { ZAMS } } \sim 8 - 25 M _ { \odot } ) , and infer a young stellar population age at the explosion site of few \times 10 Myr , at slightly sub-solar metallicity .
When comparing to expectations for exotic intermediate-mass black hole ( IMBH ) tidal disruption events , we find no evidence for a potential host system of the IMBH .
In particular , there are no abrupt changes in metallicity or kinematics in the vicinity of the explosion site , arguing against the presence of a distinct host system .
The proximity of AT 2018cow to strong star-formation in the host galaxy makes us favour a massive stellar progenitor for this event .