What is it about?

Type Ia supernova is thought to be an explosion of a white dwarf in a binary system. There are two scenarios leading to a supernova. In the so called single degenerate scenario, the white dwarf increases its mass to its limit by accreting matter from the accompanied normal star and explodes as a supernova, whereas in double degenerate scenario, the companion is also a less massive white dwarf. These two white dwarfs eventually merge and explode. We investigate emission from the collision of supernova ejecta with the remaining companion star in the context of the single degenerate scenario.

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Why is it important?

Type Ia supernovae are very bright and has a similar maximum brightness. Thus they are used as a standard candle to measure the distance to distant galaxies. The source of emission comes from decays of newly synthesized radioactive elements 56Ni. This element eventually decays to 56Fe. That is, this event produces most of 56Fe in the universe. Therefore type Ia supernova is an extremely important object to understand our universe in many aspects. On the other hand, we do not know the exact mechanism of this explosion. To understand the explosion mechanism, we try to identify some observable signals by performing simulations based on a certain scenario.

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This page is a summary of: Revealing progenitors of type Ia supernovae from their light curves and spectra, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, June 2015, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psv028.
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