Type Ia supernovae: testing models... and the Third Way
by
Stuart Sim(MPA, Garching)
→
Europe/Stockholm
FA32
FA32
Description
Thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae are of considerable astrophysical
interest owing to their role as cosmological distance indicators, heavy
element production sites and tests of our understanding of binary star
evolution. Owing to the wide range of complex physical processes
at work in these explosions, much of the theoretical work aiming to
understand them relies on sophisticated numerical simulations. I will
give an overview of the ongoing efforts to model Type Ia supernova
explosions by our group at the MPA (Garching). In particular, I will
discuss our work on numerical radiative transfer as is required to compute
synthetic observables to allow hydrodynamical explosion models to be
tested by comparison with data. I will also present recent results from
ongoing studies of three different Type Ia explosion scenarios:
delayed-detonation of Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs, binary white-dwarf
mergers and double-detonations of sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs.
