Type Ia supernova progenitors: a contemporary view of a long-standing puzzle

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Ruiter, Ashley J., Seitenzahl, Ivo R.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866916503181328384
author Ruiter, Ashley J.
Seitenzahl, Ivo R.
author_facet Ruiter, Ashley J.
Seitenzahl, Ivo R.
contents Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are runaway thermonuclear explosions in white dwarfs that result in the disruption of the white dwarf star, and possibly its nearby stellar companion. SNe Ia occur over an immense range of stellar population age and host galaxy environments, and play a critical role in the nucleosynthesis of intermediate-mass and iron-group elements, primarily the production of nickel, iron, cobalt, chromium, and manganese. Though the nature of their progenitors is still not well-understood, SNe Ia are unique among stellar explosions in that the majority of them exhibit a systematic lightcurve relation: more luminous supernovae dim more slowly over time than less luminous supernovae in optical light (intrinsically brighter SNe Ia have broader lightcurves). This feature, unique to SNe Ia, is rather remarkable and allows their peak luminosities to be determined with fairly high accuracy out to cosmological distances via measurement of their lightcurve decline. Further, studying SNe Ia gives us important insights into binary star evolution physics, since it is widely agreed that the progenitors of SNe Ia are binary (possibly multiple) star systems. In this review, we give a current update on the different proposed Type Ia supernova progenitors, including descriptions of possible binary star configurations, and their explosion mechanisms, from a theoretical perspective. We additionally give a brief overview of the historical (focusing on the more recent) observational work that has helped the astronomical community to understand the nature of the most important distance indicators in cosmology.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_01766
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Type Ia supernova progenitors: a contemporary view of a long-standing puzzle
Ruiter, Ashley J.
Seitenzahl, Ivo R.
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are runaway thermonuclear explosions in white dwarfs that result in the disruption of the white dwarf star, and possibly its nearby stellar companion. SNe Ia occur over an immense range of stellar population age and host galaxy environments, and play a critical role in the nucleosynthesis of intermediate-mass and iron-group elements, primarily the production of nickel, iron, cobalt, chromium, and manganese. Though the nature of their progenitors is still not well-understood, SNe Ia are unique among stellar explosions in that the majority of them exhibit a systematic lightcurve relation: more luminous supernovae dim more slowly over time than less luminous supernovae in optical light (intrinsically brighter SNe Ia have broader lightcurves). This feature, unique to SNe Ia, is rather remarkable and allows their peak luminosities to be determined with fairly high accuracy out to cosmological distances via measurement of their lightcurve decline. Further, studying SNe Ia gives us important insights into binary star evolution physics, since it is widely agreed that the progenitors of SNe Ia are binary (possibly multiple) star systems. In this review, we give a current update on the different proposed Type Ia supernova progenitors, including descriptions of possible binary star configurations, and their explosion mechanisms, from a theoretical perspective. We additionally give a brief overview of the historical (focusing on the more recent) observational work that has helped the astronomical community to understand the nature of the most important distance indicators in cosmology.
title Type Ia supernova progenitors: a contemporary view of a long-standing puzzle
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.01766