Type Ia Supernova Explosion: Gravitationally Confined Detonation

By T. Plewa, A. Calder, Don Lamb Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes, U. Chicago, D. O. Astronomy, Astrophysics, N. A. Center, Warsaw, Poland, Enrico Fermi Institute. 2004

209 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a new mechanism for Type Ia supernova explosions in massive white dwarfs. The scenario follows from relaxing assumptions of symmetry and involves a detonation born near the stellar surface. The explosion begins with an essentially central ignition of a deflagration that results in the formation of a buoyancy-driven bubble of hot material that reaches the stellar surface at supersonic speeds. The bubble breakout laterally accelerates fuel-rich outer stellar layers. This material, confined by gravity to the white dwarf, races along the stellar surface and is focused at the location opposite to the point of the bubble breakout. These streams of nuclear fuel carry enough mass and energy to trigger a detonation just above the stellar surface that will incinerate the white dwarf and result in an energetic explosion. The stellar expansion following the deflagration redistributes mass in a way that ensures production of intermediate-mass and iron group elements with ejecta having a strongly layered structure and a mild amount of asymmetry following from the early deflagration phase. This asymmetry, combined with the amount of stellar expansion determined by details of the evolution (principally the energetics of deflagration, timing of detonation, and structure of the progenitor), can be expected to create a family of mildly diverse Type Ia supernova explosions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

Time-dependent Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer Calculations for Three-dimensional Supernova Spectra, Light Curves, and Polarization (2006, background): “…& Hillebrandt 2005); from anisotropic energy ejection mechanisms, e.g., jets, off-center ignition (Khokhlov et al. 1999; MacFadyen & Woosley 1999; Plewa et al. 2004), or from asphericities in the progenitor star or its surrounding medium, e.g., rapid rotation of the progenitor, the presence of…”
Secondary Maximum in the Near-Infrared Light Curves of Type Ia Supernovae (2006, methodology): “Abundance stratification is generic to certain classes of explosion models, for example, the delayed-detonation models (Khokhlov 1991) and the detonation-from-failed-detonation models (Plewa et al. 2004).”
Double-detonation supernovae of sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs (2007, background): “…deflagrations (Reinecke et al. 2002b; Gamezo et al. 2003; Röpke & Hillebrandt 2005; Röpke et al. 2006; Schmidt & Niemeyer 2006; Schmidt et al. 2006; Röpke et al. 2007a) or with a delayed triggering of a supersonic detonation phase (Gamezo et al. 2004; Plewa et al. 2004; Röpke & Niemeyer 2007).”
The Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2012, background): “The explosion mechanism itself may produce asymmetry due to off-center explosion, and thus a polarization spectrum is expected (Plewa et al., 2004; Kasen and Plewa, 2005).”
Constraints on the Physics of Type Ia Supernovae from the X-Ray Spectrum of the Tycho Supernova Remnant (2005, background): “Very recently, two new explosion mechanisms for Type Ia SNe have been proposed that lead to detonations in a self-consistent way, namely, gravitationally confined detonations (Plewa et al. 2004) and pulsating reverse detonations (Bravo & Garcı́a-Senz 2006).”
Sub-Chandrasekhar-mass White Dwarf Detonations Revisited (2017, background): “Carbon fusion at the center of the WD would then lead to a phase of convective simmering, followed by the birth of a deflagration, a transition to a detonation, and subsequently, a SN Ia explosion (e.g., Khokhlov et al. 1997; Plewa et al. 2004; Seitenzahl et al. 2013b).”
SN 2003du: 480 days in the life of a normal type Ia supernova (2007, background): “Interaction of the ejecta with circumstellar matter close to the SN (e.g. Gerardy et al., 2004) or the clumpy ejecta structure found in some explosion models (e.g., Mazzali et al., 2005b; Plewa et al., 2004; Kasen & Plewa, 2005) could cause the observed HV features.”
Spectropolarimetry of Supernovae (2008, unknown): “Pac., 119, 360 Plewa et al.(2004)Plewa, T., Calder, A. C., & Lamb, D. Q. 2004, ApJ, 612, L37 Plewa(2007)Plewa, T. 2007, Ap.”
3D deflagration simulations leaving bound remnants: a model for 2002cx-like Type Ia supernovae (2012, background): “While Plewa et al. (2004) found an ensuing detonation to be triggered when the ashes collide on the far side of the star (see also Seitenzahl et al. 2009a), we – similarly to Röpke et al. (2007) and Jordan et al. (2012b) – do not find high enough densities and temperatures for such a detonation to…”