Thermonuclear explosions of rapidly differentially rotating white dwarfs

In an upcoming publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, an international team of researchers, including PSO scientists Markus Kromer and Friedrich Röpke, studied thermonuclear explosions of rapidly differentially rotating white dwarfs. Such systems have been proposed to explain the observed sub-class of “superluminous” Type Ia supernovae. The paper presents three-dimensional hydrodynamics and radiative transfer simulations for different explosion mechanisms in various differentially rotating carbon-oxygen white dwarfs close to their respective limit of stability. The results are inconsistent with any known subclass of Type Ia supernovae, including “superluminous” Type Ia supernovae. Implications of these findings for the explosion mechanism and for the existence of differentially rotating white dwarfs as supernova progenitors are discussed.

Publication:
M. Fink, M. Kromer, W. Hillebrandt, F.K. Röpke, R. Pakmor, I.R. Seitenzahl and S.A. Sim (2018): Thermonuclear explosions of rapidly differentially rotating white dwarfs: candidates for superluminous Type Ia supernovae? A&A, Accepted: 17 July 2018. Full text available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.10199