On Type Ia Supernovae From The Collisions of Two White Dwarfs
Frank X. Timmes
Arizona State
October 27, 2009, 4PM, Steward N305
NOTE: THIS IS A TUESDAY! ALSO NOTE LOCATION.
We'll explore collisions between two white dwarfs as a pathway for
making Type Ia Supernovae. White dwarf number densities in globular
clusters allow 10-100 redshift < 1 collisions per year, and
observations by Chomiuk et al. 2008 of globular clusters in the
nearby S0 galaxy NGC 7457 have detected what may be a Type Ia
supernovae remnant. I'll show simulations of the collision
between two 0.6 Msun white dwarfs at various impact parameters and mass
resolutions. For impact parameters less than half the radius of the
white dwarf, we find such collisions produce ~0.4 Msun of 56Ni,
making such events potential candidates for underluminous SNIa
or a new class of transients in the vast desert between Novae
and Type Ia supernovae.
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