Have the Elusive Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae Been Discovered?

By M. Livio, A. Riess. 2003

139 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent detection of Hα emission in the Type Ia supernova SN 2002ic could be taken to mean that the elusive progenitor systems of Type Ia supernovae have finally been identified. At first glance, the observation appears to support a single-degenerate scenario, in which the white dwarf accretes from a normal companion. In this Letter we show that the opposite may be true, and the observations may support the merger of two white dwarfs as the cause for Type Ia supernovae.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9a54f4ee79efd0ca33d37f80c710853d447e0646

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Citations in the corpus

The Supernova rate per unit mass (2004, background): “…of stars more massive than 8M⊙ (e.g. Iben & Renzini 1983), whereas the trend of the frequency of type Ia SNe from Ellipticals to late Spirals can provide deep insights on the controversial nature of the binary companion in type Ia events (see for example Hamuy et al. 2003 and Livio & Riess 2003).”
HELIUM-IGNITED VIOLENT MERGERS AS A UNIFIED MODEL FOR NORMAL AND RAPIDLY DECLINING TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE (2013, background): “SNe Ia with signs of CSM interaction (see, e.g., Patat et al. 2007; Dilday et al. 2012) can be interpreted as double-degenerate systems exploding shortly after the last common-envelope phase (Livio & Riess 2003; Soker et al. 2013).”
SN 2006gy: An Extremely Luminous Supernova in the Galaxy NGC 1260 (2006, background): “Type-IIn SNe are most plausibly the result of a core collapse SN embedded in dense CSM, while IIa events have been explained as thermo-nuclear explosions taking place in a dense medium (e.g., Livio & Riess 2003; Han & Podsiadlowski 2006).”
RATES AND DELAY TIMES OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE (2009, background): “…SNe Ia formation scenarios have been proposed, though they likely do not account for the majority of SNe Ia (e.g., sub-Chandrasekhar mass SNe Ia (Woosley & Weaver 1994), common envelope WD 3 SWB-like in Belczynski et al. (2005). mergers (Livio & Riess 2003; Applegate 1991; Sparks & Stecher 1974)).”
Observational Clues to the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae (2013, background): “Another possibility that was raised was a prompt DD merger that encountered a recently ejected common envelope (Livio & Riess 2003).”
The Hubble Higher z Supernova Search: Supernovae to z ≈ 1.6 and Constraints on Type Ia Progenitor Models (2004, background): “We also note that the detection of H in the spectra of SN 2002ic (Hamuy et al. 2003) cannot by itself be taken as evidence against the DD scenario (see Livio & Riess 2003).”
Nearby Supernova Factory Observations of SN 2005gj: Another Type Ia Supernova in a Massive Circumstellar Envelope (2006, background): “Other possibilities include the Livio & Riess (2003) model for SN 2002ic, in which the merger of two WDs immediately follows a CE phase.”
A circumbinary disc in the final stages of common envelope and the core-degenerate scenario for Type Ia supernovae (2011, background): “An important conclusion of Livio & Riess (2003) is that for merger to occur the AGB star should be massive.”
SN 2006gy: Discovery of the Most Luminous Supernova Ever Recorded, Powered by the Death of an Extremely Massive Star like η Carinae (2006, background): “…conflict with an interpretation involving a common envelope mass-loss phase (e.g., Taam& Ricker 2006, and references therein), as suggested by Livio & Riess (2003) to explain the properties of SN 2002ic, and in the first version of Ofek et al. (2007, in astro-ph/0612408) to explain SN2006gy,…”