Propagation of the First Flames in Type Ia Supernovae

Details Propagation of the First Flames in Type Ia Supernovae Propagation of the First Flames in Type Ia Supernovae

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...20915018d&link_type=abstract

2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #150.18; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society,

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

While the `big picture' of how Type Ia supernovae explode is growing clearer, how it unfolds remains a mystery, and may be responsible for the observed diversity of Type Ia explosions. Understanding and constraining this diversity is necessary if we need to depend on the uniform nature of Type Ia supernovae over cosmological distances.
Here we present recent analytic and numerical work aimed at understanding the early-time burning of the Type Ia which may also play an unexpected role in the late type burning -understanding the balance between local burning, turbulence, and bouyancy. Even in the vigorously turbulent conditions of a convecting white dwarf, thermonuclear burning that begins at a point near the center (within 100 km) of the star is dominated simply by the spherical laminar expansion of the flame, until the burning region reaches kilometers in size. Only once the bubble grows quite large---indeed, resolvable by large-scale simulations of the global system---does significant motion or deformation occur. As a result, any hot-spot that successfully ignites into a flame can burn a significant amount of white dwarf material. This potentially increases the stochastic nature of the explosion compared to a scenario where a simmering progenitor can have small early hot-spots float harmlessly away.
Further, the size where the laminar flame speed dominates other relevant velocities sets a characteristic scale for fragmentation of larger flame structures, as nothing---by definition---can easily break the burning region into smaller volumes. This allows for simple< semi-analytic models of burning, which potentially allows for a rapid speedup of burning when degeneracy begins to lift. A rapid increase of burning at this point has long been thought necessary to explain observations of Type Ia, although where it would come from has been poorly understood.

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