White Dwarf Collisions as Potential SNIa Progenitors
Abstract
We present zero impact parameter 3D collisions of white dwarfs using the Eulerian grid code FLASH to explore the possibility of such events being part of the overall Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa) population. The models span collisions of equal and unequal mass carbon-oxygen white dwarfs between 0.5 and 0.9 solar masses. We find the mass of Ni-56 produced ranges from 0.0 to 0.9 solar masses depending on the white dwarf mass pairings. This is sufficient Ni-56 production to span the subluminous to overluminous range of SNIa. We compare these results to a parallel study carried out using a Lagrangian particle code SNSPH. We find the FLASH calculations produce less Ni-56 than the SNSPH models, which we attribute to differences in ignition criteria.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #217
- Pub Date:
- January 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AAS...21734109H