The C/O ratio of He-accreting carbon-oxygen white dwarfs and type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae(SNe Ia) are thermonuclear explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs(CO WDs), and are believed to be excellent cosmological distance indicators due to their high luminosity and remarkable uniformity. However, there exists a diversity among SNe Ia, and a poor understanding of the diversity hampers the improvement of the accuracy of cosmological distance measurements. The variations of the ratios of carbon to oxygen(C/O) of WDs at explosion are suggested to contribute to the diversity. In the canonical model of SNe Ia, a CO WD accretes matter from its companion and increases its mass till the Chandrasekhar mass limit when the WD explodes. In this work, we studied the C/O ratio for accreting CO WDs. Employing the stellar evolution code MESA, we simulated the accretion of He-rich material onto CO WDs with different initial WD masses and different mass accretion rates. We found that the C/O ratio varies for different cases. The C/O ratio of He-accreting CO WDs at explosion increases with a decreasing initial WD mass or a decreasing accretion rate. The various C/O ratios may, therefore, contribute to the diversity of SNe Ia.     

Progenitors of type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play an important role in astrophysics and are crucial for the studies of stellar evolution, galaxy evolution and cosmology. They are generally thought to be thermonuclear explosions of accreting carbon–oxygen white dwarfs (CO WDs) in close binaries, however, the nature of the mass donor star is still unclear. In this article, we review various progenitor models proposed in the past years and summarize many observational results that can be used to put constraints on the nature of their progenitors. We also discuss the origin of SN Ia diversity and the impacts of SN Ia progenitors on some fields. The currently favourable progenitor model is the single-degenerate (SD) model, in which the WD accretes material from a non-degenerate companion star. This model may explain the similarities of most SNe Ia. It has long been argued that the double-degenerate (DD) model, which involves the merger of two CO WDs, may lead to an accretion-induced collapse rather than a thermonuclear explosion. However, recent observations of a few SNe Ia seem to support the DD model, and this model can produce normal SN Ia explosion under certain conditions. Additionally, the sub-luminous SNe Ia may be explained by the sub-Chandrasekhar mass model. At present, it seems likely that more than one progenitor model, including some variants of the SD and DD models, may be required to explain the observed diversity of SNe Ia.     

Mass-accreting white dwarfs and type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae(SNe Ia) play a prominent role in understanding the evolution of the Universe. They are thought to be thermonuclear explosions of mass-accreting carbon-oxygen white dwarfs(CO WDs) in binaries, although the mass donors of the accreting WDs are still not well determined. In this article, I review recent studies on mass-accreting WDs, including H-and He-accreting WDs. I also review currently most studied progenitor models of SNe Ia, i.e., the single-degenerate model(including the WD+MS channel, the WD+RG channel and the WD+He star channel), the doubledegenerate model(including the violent merger scenario) and the sub-Chandrasekhar mass model.Recent progress on these progenitor models is discussed, including the initial parameter space for producing SNe Ia, the binary evolutionary paths to SNe Ia, the progenitor candidates for SNe Ia, the possible surviving companion stars of SNe Ia, some observational constraints, etc. Some other potential progenitor models of SNe Ia are also summarized, including the hybrid CONe WD model, the core-degenerate model, the double WD collision model, the spin-up/spin-down model and the model of WDs near black holes. To date, it seems that two or more progenitor models are needed to explain the observed diversity among SNe Ia.     

WD + He star systems as the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae and their surviving companion stars

Employing Eggleton’s stellar evolution code with the optically thick wind assumption, we have systematically studied the WD + He star channel of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), in which a carbon–oxygen WD accretes material from a He main-sequence star or a He subgiant to increase its mass to the Chandrasekhar mass. We mapped out the parameter spaces for producing SNe Ia. According to a detailed binary population synthesis approach, we find that the Galactic SN Ia birthrate from this channel is ～0.3×10^?3 yr^?1, and that this channel can produce SNe Ia with short delay times (～45–140 Myr). We also find that the surviving companion stars in this channel have a high spatial velocity (>400 km/s) after the SN explosion, which could be an alternative origin for hypervelocity stars (HVSs), especially for HVSs such as US 708.     

WD+RG systems as the progenitors of type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae(SNe Ia)play an important role in the study of cosmic evolution,especially in cosmology.There are several progenitor models for SNe Ia proposed in the past years.By considering the effect of accretion disk instability on the evolution of white dwarf(WD)binaries,we performed detailed binary evolution calculations for the WD+red-giant(RG)channel of SNe Ia,in which a carbon-oxygen WD accretes material from a RG star to increase its mass to the Chandrasekhar mass limit.According to these calcu...     

Observational characteristics and possible asphericity of overluminous Type Ia supernovae

A few Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have been suggested to be an explosion of a super-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf (WD) in order to account for their large luminosities, requiring a large amount of ⁵⁶Ni. However, the candidate overluminous SNe Ia 2003fg, 2006gz and (moderately overluminous) SN 1991T have very different observational features: the characteristic time-scale and velocity are very different. We examine if and how the diversity can be explained, by one-dimensional spherical radiation transport calculations covering a wide range of model parameters (e.g. WD mass). The observations of SN 2006gz are naturally explained by the super-Chandrasekhar-mass model. SN 1991T represents a marginal case, which may either be a Chandrasekhar or a super-Chandrasekhar-mass WD explosion. In contrast, the low velocity and short time-scale seen in SN 2003fg indicate that the ejecta mass is smaller than the Chandrasekhar mass, which is in apparent contradiction to the large luminosity. We suggest that the problem is solved if the progenitor WD, and thus the SN explosion, is aspherical. This may reflect a rapid rotation of the progenitor star, likely a consequence of the super-Chandrasekhar-mass WD progenitor. The observed differences between SNe 2003fg and 2006gz may be attributed to different viewing orientations.     

WD+MS systems as the progenitor of SNe Ia

The single-degenerate (SD) channel for the progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is one of the most popular channels, in which a carbon–oxygen white dwarf (CO WD) accretes hydrogen-rich material from its companion, increases its mass to the Chandrasekhar mass limit, and then explodes as a SN Ia. We show the initial and final parameter space for SNe Ia in a ( $\log P^{\mathrm{i}},M_{2}^{\mathrm{i}}$ ) plane and find that the positions of some famous recurrent novae, as well as a supersoft X-ray source (SSS), RX J0513.9-6951, are well explained by our model. The model can also explain the space velocity and mass of Tycho G, which is now suggested to be the companion star of Tycho’s supernova. Our study indicates that the SSS, V Sge, might be the potential progenitor of supernovae like SN 2002ic if the delayed dynamical-instability model due to Han and Podsiadlowski (Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 368:1095, 2006) is appropriate. Following the work of Meng et al. (Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 395:2103, 2009a), we found that the SD model (WD+MS) with an optically thick wind can explain the birth rate of supernovae like SN 2006X and reproduce the distribution of the color excess of SNe Ia. The model also predicts that at least 75% of all SNe Ia may show a polarization signal in their spectra.     

The cooling time of white dwarfs produced from type Iasupernovae

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play a key role in measuring cosmological pa- rameters, in which the Phillips relation is adopted. However, the origin of the relation is still unclear. Several parameters are suggested, e.g. the relative content of carbon to oxygen (C/O) and the central density of the white dwarf (WD) at ignition. These parameters are mainly determined by the WD's initial mass and its cooling time, respectively. Using the progenitor model developed by Meng Yang, we present the distributions of the initial WD mass and the cooling time. We do not find any correlation between these parameters. However, we notice that as the range of the WD's mass decreases, its average value increases with the cooling time. These results could provide a constraint when simulating the SN Ia explosion, i.e. the WDs with a high C/O ratio usually have a lower central density at ignition, while those having the highest central density at ignition generally have a lower C/O ratio. The cooling time is mainly determined by the evolutionary age of secondaries, and the scatter of the cooling time decreases with the evolutionary age. Our results may indicate that WDs with a long cooling time have more uniform properties than those with a short cooling time, which may be helpful to explain why SNe Ia in elliptical galaxies have a more uniform maximum luminosity than those in spiral galaxies.     

The cooling time of white dwarfs produced from type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae(SNe Ia)play a key role in measuring cosmological parameters,in which the Phillips relation is adopted.However,the origin of the relation is still unclear.Several parameters are suggested,e.g.the relative content of carbon to oxygen(C/O)and the central density of the white dwarf(WD)at ignition.These parameters are mainly determined by the WD's initial mass and its cooling time,respectively.Using the progenitor model developed by Meng & Yang,we present the distributions of the initial WD mass and the cooling time.We do not find any correlation between these parameters.However,we notice that as the range of the WD's mass decreases,its average value increases with the cooling time.These results could provide a constraint when simulating the SN Ia explosion,i.e.the WDs with a high C/O ratio usually have a lower central density at ignition,while those having the highest central density at ignition generally have a lower C/O ratio.The cooling time is mainly determined by the evolutionary age of secondaries,and the scatter of the cooling time decreases with the evolutionary age.Our results may indicate that WDs with a long cooling time have more uniform properties than those with a short cooling time,which may be helpful to explain why SNe Ia in elliptical galaxies have a more uniform maximum luminosity than those in spiral galaxies.     

Accreting CO material onto ONe white dwarfs towards accretion-induced collapse

The final outcomes of accreting ONe white dwarfs(ONe WDs) have been studied for several decades,but there are still some issues that are not resolved. Recently,some studies suggested that the deflagration of oxygen would occur for accreting ONe WDs with Chandrasekhar masses. In this paper,we aim to investigate whether ONe WDs can experience accretion-induced collapse(AIC) or explosions when their masses approach the Chandrasekhar limit. Employing the stellar evolution code Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics(MESA),we simulate the longterm evolution of ONe WDs with accreting CO material. The ONe WDs undergo weak multicycle carbon flashes during the mass-accretion process,leading to mass increase of the WDs. We found that different initial WD masses and mass-accretion rates influence the evolution of central density and temperature. However,the central temperature cannot reach the explosive oxygen ignition temperature due to neutrino cooling. This work implies that the final outcome of accreting ONe WDs is electroncapture induced collapse rather than thermonuclear explosion.     

Is the X-ray pulsating companion of HD 49798 a possible type Ia supernova progenitor?

HD 49798(a hydrogen depleted subdwarf O6 star) with its massive white dwarf(WD) companion has been suggested to be a progenitor candidate of a type Ia supernova(SN Ia). However, it is still uncertain whether the companion of HD 49798 is a carbon-oxygen(CO) WD or an oxygen-neon(ONe) WD. A CO WD will explode as an SN Ia when its mass grows and approaches the Chandrasekhar limit, but the outcome of an accreting ONe WD is likely to be a neutron star. We generated a series of Monte Carlo calculations that incorperate binary population synthesis to simulate the formation of ONe WD + He star systems. We found that there is almost no orbital period as large as HD 49798 with its WD companion in these ONe WD + He star systems based on our simulations, which means that the companion of HD 49798 might not be an ONe WD. We suggest that the companion of HD 49798 is most likely a CO WD, which can be expected to increase its mass to the Chandrasekhar limit by accreting He-rich material from HD 49798. Thus, HD 49798 and its companion may produce an SN Ia as a result of its future evolution.     

A likely candidate of type Ia supernova progenitors: the X-ray pulsating companion of the hot subdwarf HD 49798

HD49798 is a hydrogen depleted subdwarf 06 star and has an X-ray pulsating companion(RX J0648.0-4418).The X-ray pulsating companion is a massive white dwarf.Employing Eggleton's stellar evolution code with the optically thick wind assumption,we find that the hot subdwarf HD 49798 and its X-ray pulsating companion could produce a type Ia supernova(SN Ia)in future evolution.This implies that the binary system is a likely candidate of an SN Ia progenitor.We also discuss the possibilities of some other WD+He star systems(e.g.V445 Pup and KPD1930+2752)for producing SNe Ia.     

The local properties of supernova explosions and their host galaxies

We aim to understand the properties at the locations of supernova(SN) explosions in their host galaxies and compare with the global properties of these host galaxies. We use the integral field spectrograph(IFS) of Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory(MaNGA) to generate 2 D maps of the parameter properties for 11 SN host galaxies. The sample galaxies are analyzed one by one in detail in terms of their properties of velocity field, star formation rate, oxygen abundance, stellar mass, etc.This sample of SN host galaxies has redshifts around z~0.03, which is higher than those of previous related works. The higher redshift distribution allows us to obtain the properties of more distant SN host galaxies. Metallicity(gas-phase oxygen abundance) estimated from integrated spectra can represent the local metallicity at SN explosion sites with small bias. All the host galaxies in our sample are metal-rich galaxies(12+log(O/H) 8.5) except for NGC 6387, which means SNe may be more inclined to explode in metallicity-rich galaxies. There is a positive relation between global gas-phase oxygen abundance and the stellar mass of host galaxies. We also try to compare the differences of the host galaxies between SNe Ia and SNe II. In our sample, both SNe Ia and SNe II can explode in normal galaxies, but SNe II can also explode in an interacting or a merging system, in which star formation is occurring in the galaxy.     

Type-Ia supernovae in dense circumstellar gas

We propose a model for the bolometric light curve of a type-Ia supernova (SN Ia) that explodes in a dense circumstellar (CS) envelope. Our modeling of the light curves for SN 2002ic and SN 1997cy shows that the densities of the CS envelopes around both supernovae at a radius of ～7×10¹⁵ cm are similar, while the characteristic ejection time for this envelope around SN 1997cy does not exceed 600 yr. We analyze two possible evolutionary scenarios that could lead to the explosion of a SN Ia inside a dense C S hydrogen envelope: accretion onto a CO white dwarf in a symbiotic binary and the evolution of a single star with an initial mass of about 8M_⊙. If the hypothesis of a SN Ia explosion in a dense CS envelope is correct for SN 2002ic and SN 1997cy, then we must assume that the the rapid loss of the red-supergiant envelope in several hundred years and the subsequent explosion of the CO white dwarf are synchronized by some physical mechanism. This mechanism may be related to the contraction of the white dwarf as it approaches the Chandrasekhar limit. We show that the formation of a (super-)Chandrasekhar mass due to the merger of a CO white dwarf and the CO core of a red supergiant followed by a supernovae explosion is unlikely, since this mechanism does not provide the required synchronization of the rapid mass loss and the explosion.     

Accreting white dwarfs as supersoft X‐ray sources

I review various phenomena associated with mass‐accreting white dwarfs (WDs) in the view of supersoft X‐ray sources. When the mass‐accretion rate is low (Ṁ_acc < a few × 10^–7 M⊙yr^–1), hydrogen nuclear burning is unstable and nova outbursts occur. A nova is a transient supersoft X‐ray source (SSS) in its later phase which timescale depends strongly on the WD mass. The X‐ray turn on/off time is a good indicator of the WD mass. At an intermediate mass‐accretion rate an accreting WD becomes a persistent SSS with steady hydrogen burning. For a higher mass‐accretion rate, the WD undergoes “accretion wind evolution” in which the WD accretes matter from the equatorial plane and loses mass by optically thick winds from the other directions. Two SSS, namely RX J0513‐6951 and V Sge, are corresponding objects to this accretion wind evolution. We can specify mass increasing WDs from light‐curve analysis based on the optically thick wind theory using multiwavelength observational data including optical, IR, and supersoft X‐rays. Mass estimates of individual objects give important information for the binary evolution scenario of type Ia supernovae (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Evolution of the number of accreting white dwarfs with shell nuclear burning and the SNe Ia rate

We analyze the time evolution of the number of accreting white dwarfs with surface shell hydrogen burning in semidetached and detached binaries. We consider the case where continuous star formation with a constant rate takes place in a stellar system over 10¹⁰ Gyr and the case of a starburst in which the same mass of stars is formed over 10⁹ Gyr. The evolution of the number of white dwarfs is compared with the evolution of the rate of events that are usually considered as SNe Ia and/or accretion-induced collapses, i.e., the accumulation of a Chandrasekhar mass by white dwarfs or the merger of white dwarf pairs with a total mass greater than or equal to the Chandrasekhar one. In stellar systems with a starburst, the supersoft X-ray sources observed at t = 10¹⁰ yr are most likely not the progenitors of SNe Ia. The same is true for a significant fraction of the sources in systems with a constant star formation rate. In both cases, the merger of white dwarfs is the dominant mechanism of SNe Ia. In symbiotic binaries, accreting CO dwarfs do not accumulate enough mass for an SNe Ia explosion, while ONeMg dwarfs finish their evolution by an accretion-induce collapse with the formation of a neutron star.     

The C flash and the ignition conditions of Type Ia supernovae

Thanks to a stellar evolution code that is able to compute through the C flash we link the binary population synthesis of single degenerate progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to their physical condition at the time of ignition. We show that there is a large range of possible ignition densities and we detail how their probability distribution depends on the accretion properties. The low-density peak of this distribution qualitatively reminds of the clustering of the luminosities of Branch-normal SNe Ia. We tighten the possible range of initial physical conditions for explosion models: they form a one-parameter family, independent of the metallicity. We discuss how these results may be modified if we were to relax our hypothesis of a permanent Hachisu wind or if we were to include electron captures.     

Model-Synthesized Rate of Type Ia Supernovae and its Influence on the Chemical Enrichment of the ISM

Using Hurley's rapid binary stellar evolution code, we have studied the model-synthesized rate of Type la Supernovae (SNe Ia) and its influence on the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium ejected by stellar populations. We adopt two popular scenarios, i.e.,single degenerate scenario (SD) and double degenerate scenario (DD), for the progenitors of SNe Ia to calculate the rates of SNe Ia. Rates calculated in this work agree with that of Hachisu et al. and Han & Podsiadlowski, but are different from that usually adopted in chem-ical evolution models of galaxies. We apply the rates of SNe Ia to the chemical enrichment (especially Fe enrichment), then compare the results with previous studies. As known SNe Ia slightly affect the enrichment of C, N, O and Mg elements, while significantly affect the en-richment of Fe. We find that the occurrence and the value of the Fe enrichment in our models are earlier and smaller than that commonly adopted in chemical evolution models. We also study the evolution of [Mg/Fe] ratios, which are almost reciprocals of the Fe enrichment.The study may provide constraints on the free parameters of chemical evolution models of galaxies and evolutionary population synthesis.