DETONATIONS IN SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR-MASS C+O WHITE DWARFS

By Stuart A. Sim, Friedrich K. Röpke, W. Hillebrandt, M. Kromer, Rüdiger Pakmor, M. Fink, A. Ruiter, I. Seitenzahl. 2010

251 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Explosions of sub-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs (WDs) are one alternative to the standard Chandrasekhar-mass model of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). They are interesting since binary systems with sub-Chandrasekhar-mass primary WDs should be common and this scenario would suggest a simple physical parameter which determines the explosion brightness, namely the mass of the exploding WD. Here we perform one-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, associated post-processing nucleosynthesis, and multi-wavelength radiation transport calculations for pure detonations of carbon–oxygen WDs. The light curves and spectra we obtain from these simulations are in good agreement with observed properties of SNe Ia. In particular, for WD masses from 0.97 to 1.15 M☉ we obtain 56Ni masses between 0.3 and 0.8 M☉, sufficient to capture almost the complete range of SN Ia brightnesses. Our optical light curve rise times, peak colors, and decline timescales display trends which are generally consistent with observed characteristics although the range of B-band decline timescales displayed by our current set of models is somewhat too narrow. In agreement with observations, the maximum light spectra of the models show clear features associated with intermediate-mass elements and reproduce the sense of the observed correlation between explosion luminosity and the ratio of the Si ii lines at λ6355 and λ5972. We therefore suggest that sub-Chandrasekhar-mass explosions are a viable model for SNe Ia for any binary evolution scenario leading to explosions in which the optical display is dominated by the material produced in a detonation of the primary WD.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/47155f986e5e539c694869aa4d0715e294b3666f

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Kasen
2. F. Mannucci
3. D. Maoz
4. Rüdiger Pakmor
5. B. Metzger
6. M. Kromer
7. E. Quataert
8. G. Nelemans

Citations in the corpus

• DOUBLE-DETONATION SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR SUPERNOVAE: SYNTHETIC OBSERVABLES FOR MINIMUM HELIUM SHELL MASS MODELS (2010, background): “Moreover, Sim et al. (2010) have recently shown that detonations of centrally ignited spherically symmetric naked sub-Chandrasekhar-mass C/O WDs are capable of reproducing the observed diversity of light curves and spectra of SNe Ia—at least to a similar level of agreement as models of the more…”
• Violent mergers of nearly equal-mass white dwarf as progenitors of subluminous Type Ia supernovae (2011, background): “Note that a thermonuclear explosion may also be possible before the white dwarf reaches the Chandrasekhar-mass if the carbonoxygen white dwarf accretes helium from a non-degenerate or white dwarf companion (Fink et al. 2007, 2010; Sim et al. 2010; Guillochon et al. 2010).”
• THE LONG-TERM EVOLUTION OF DOUBLE WHITE DWARF MERGERS (2011, background): “The double detonation scenario has received more attention recently due to the prediction of He detonations in pre-AM CVn systems (Bildsten et al. 2007; Fink et al. 2007, 2010; Shen & Bildsten 2009; Shen et al. 2010; Sim et al. 2010; Woosley & Kasen 2011).”
• A COMPACT DEGENERATE PRIMARY-STAR PROGENITOR OF SN 2011fe (2011, background): “We thus consider Mp,lim = 0.5M as a conservative lower limit to the mass of the primary; this value is below the lower mass limit (Mp,lim = 0.7) for sub-luminous SN Ia models (Sim et al. 2010; Woosley & Kasen 2011).”
• THE SUPERNOVA DELAY TIME DISTRIBUTION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TYPE-Ia PROGENITORS AND METAL ENRICHMENT (2010, background): “Such a late break time is interesting in the context of sub-Chandra merger models, in which the mergers of white dwarfs of initial masses smaller than 3M⊙ produce SNe Ia (Sim et al. 2010; Van Kerkwijk et al. 2010).”
• 3D deflagration simulations leaving bound remnants: a model for 2002cx-like Type Ia supernovae (2012, background): “52 43 v2 [ as tr oph able to explain such an ejecta structure (e.g. Sim et al. 2010; Seitenzahl et al. 2012), such a strong mixing can easily be obtained from turbulent deflagrations in WDs (Gamezo, Khokhlov, & Oran 2004; Röpke & Hillebrandt 2005).”
• HELIUM-IGNITED VIOLENT MERGERS AS A UNIFIED MODEL FOR NORMAL AND RAPIDLY DECLINING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE (2013, background): “Mergers with a primary WD mass around 0.9M should produce a 56Ni mass close to that required for 1991bg-like SNe Ia (Pakmor et al. 2010; Sim et al. 2010).”
• Three Hypervelocity White Dwarfs in Gaia DR2: Evidence for Dynamically Driven Double-degenerate Double-detonation Type Ia Supernovae (2018, methodology): “We assume the mass of the exploding WD ranges from 0.85M (lower boundary of each region) to 1.1M (upper boundary), as motivated by WD detonation calculations (Sim et al. 2010; Blondin et al. 2017; Shen et al. 2018).”
• SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR MASS MODELS FOR SUPERNOVAE (2010, methodology): “We differ fundamentally with Sim et al. (2010) and Kromer et al. (2010) regarding the nucleosynthesis expected from helium detonation in these models (Section 6.2).”
• NORMAL TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE FROM VIOLENT MERGERS OF WHITE DWARF BINARIES (2012, methodology): “Our model can be interpreted as a pure detonation of an isolated sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf as described in Sim et al. (2010) with an additional component from the remains of the secondary white dwarf surrounding the system.”
• OPACITIES AND SPECTRA OF THE r-PROCESS EJECTA FROM NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2013, methodology): “Supernova modelers have used the Kurucz data to successfully model the optical light curves and spectra of observed (iron-rich) SNe Ia (e.g., Kasen et al. 2009; Sim et al. 2010) which suggests that, for the iron group, the Kurucz line data can be taken to be reasonably accurate and complete.”
• Three-dimensional delayed-detonation models with nucleosynthesis for Type Ia supernovae (2012, methodology): “The yield distributions can be used as an input to radiative transfer calculations (e.g. Kasen et al. 2006; Sim 2007; Sim et al. 2010; Kromer et al. 2010; Pakmor et al. 2010; Röpke et al. 2012) to derive model light curves and spectra.”
• Sub-Chandrasekhar-mass White Dwarf Detonations Revisited (2017, methodology): “As mentioned above, Sim et al. (2010)’s U - and B-band light curves show some late-time flattening, which ours do not.”
• Type-Ia Supernova Rates and the Progenitor Problem: A Review (2011, background): “Sub-Chandrasekhar explosions have been proposed as a way of explaining some, or perhaps even most SN Ia events (Raskin et al. 2009; Rosswog et al. 2009; Sim et al. 2010; van Kekwijk, Chang & Justham 2010; Guillochon et al. 2010; Ruiter et al. 2011).”
• SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR WHITE DWARF MERGERS AS THE PROGENITORS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE (2010, background): “In contrast, Sim et al. (2010) studied central detonations of sub-Chandrasekhar WDs (ignoring the ignition 3 mechanism, which we address in Sect.”
• Supernova Type Ia progenitors from merging double white dwarfs - Using a new population synthesis model (2012, background): “Sim et al. (2010) found that if sub-Chandrasekhar WDs can be detonated, especially in the range∼ 1.0−1.2M⊙, the explosions match several observed properties of SNIa reasonably well.”