TAPIR Seminar

Remnants of Double and Quadruple Detonations in Binary White Dwarfs

Logan Prust, Postdoctoral Fellow, KITP, UC Santa Barbara,

In person: 370 Cahill. To Join via Zoom: 868 5298 8404

ABSTRACT: A collision between type Ia supernova ejecta and a Roche-lobe filling white dwarf donor carves out a conical wake in the ejecta, affecting the morphology of the supernova remnant (SNR) as it expands into the interstellar medium over thousands of years. This collision may also ignite the donor after a delay, resulting in the destruction of both white dwarfs and enriching the core of the SNR with additional heavy elements. Because SNRs are optically thin to X-rays, the continuum thermal emission of the shock-heated ejecta as well as the line emission from alpha-process elements may shed light on the physics of the initial explosion. In this talk, I present hydrodynamical models of the SNRs produced by various detonation mechanisms, comparing their forward and reverse shocks, compositions, and X-ray emission. In many cases, the SNR is left with an asymmetrical appearance due to large Rayleigh-Taylor plumes at the boundary of the conical wake suspending ejecta at large radii.

Event Sponsors:

Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) - More events from this Sponsor

For more information, please contact JoAnn Boyd by phone at 626-395-4280 or by email at joann@caltech.edu.