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Register a new userNebular Spectra of 111 Type Ia Supernovae Disfavor Single Degenerate Progenitors
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We place statistical constraints on Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) progenitors using 227 nebular phase spectra of 111 SNe Ia. We find no evidence of stripped companion emission in any of the nebular phase spectra. Upper limits are placed on the amount of mass that could go undetected in each spectrum using recent hydrodynamic simulations. With these null detections, we place an observational $3sigma$ upper limit on the fraction of SNe Ia that are produced through the classical H-rich non-degenerate companion scenario of < 5.5%. Additionally, we set a tentative $3sigma$ upper limit on He star progenitor scenarios of < 6.4%, although further theoretical modelling is required. These limits refer to our most representative sample including normal, 91bg-like, 91T-like, and Super Chandrasekhar sne but excluding SNe Iax and SNe Ia-CSM. As part of our analysis, we also derive a Nebular Phase Phillips Relation, which approximates the brightness of a SN Ia from $150-500$~days after maximum using the peak magnitude and decline rate parameter $Delta m_{15} (B)$.
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We present late-time spectra of eight Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained at $>200$ days after peak brightness using the Gemini South and Keck telescopes. All of the SNe Ia in our sample were nearby, well separated from their host galaxys light, and have early-time photometry and spectroscopy from the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO). Parameters are derived from the light curves and spectra such as peak brightness, decline rate, photospheric velocity, and the widths and velocities of the forbidden nebular emission lines. We discuss the physical interpretations of these parameters for the individual SNe Ia and the sample in general, including comparisons to well-observed SNe Ia from the literature. There are possible correlations between early-time and late-time spectral features that may indicate an asymmetric explosion, so we discuss our sample of SNe within the context of models for an offset ignition and/or white dwarf collisions. A subset of our late-time spectra are uncontaminated by host emission, and we statistically evaluate our nondetections of H$alpha$ emission to limit the amount of hydrogen in these systems. Finally, we consider the late-time evolution of the iron emission lines, finding that not all of our SNe follow the established trend of a redward migration at $>200$ days after maximum brightness.
The light curves of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are powered by the radioactive decay of $^{56}$Ni to $^{56}$Co at early times, and the decay of $^{56}$Co to $^{56}$Fe from ~60 days after explosion. We examine the evolution of the [Co III] 5892 A emission complex during the nebular phase for SNe Ia with multiple nebular spectra and show that the line flux follows the square of the mass of $^{56}$Co as a function of time. This result indicates both efficient local energy deposition from positrons produced in $^{56}$Co decay, and long-term stability of the ionization state of the nebula. We compile 77 nebular spectra of 25 SN Ia from the literature and present 17 new nebular spectra of 7 SNe Ia, including SN2014J. From these we measure the flux in the [Co III] 5892 A line and remove its well-behaved time dependence to infer the initial mass of $^{56}$Ni ($M_{Ni}$) produced in the explosion. We then examine $^{56}$Ni yields for different SN Ia ejected masses ($M_{ej}$ - calculated using the relation between light curve width and ejected mass) and find the $^{56}$Ni masses of SNe Ia fall into two regimes: for narrow light curves (low stretch s~0.7-0.9), $M_{Ni}$ is clustered near $M_{Ni}$ ~ 0.4$M_odot$ and shows a shallow increase as $M_{ej}$ increases from ~1-1.4$M_odot$; at high stretch, $M_{ej}$ clusters at the Chandrasekhar mass (1.4$M_odot$) while $M_{Ni}$ spans a broad range from 0.6-1.2$M_odot$. This could constitute evidence for two distinct SN Ia explosion mechanisms.
The origin of the progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is still uncertain. The core-degenerate (CD) scenario has been proposed as an alternative way for the production of SNe Ia. In this scenario, SNe Ia are formed at the final stage of common-envelope evolution from a merger of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf (CO WD) with the CO core of an asymptotic giant branch companion. However, the birthrates of SNe Ia from this scenario are still not well determined. In this work, we performed a detailed investigation on the CD scenario based on a binary population synthesis approach. The SN Ia delay times from this scenario are basically in the range of 90Myr-2500Myr, mainly contributing to the observed SNe Ia with short and intermediate delay times although this scenario can also produce some old SNe Ia. Meanwhile, our work indicates that the Galactic birthrates of SNe Ia from this scenario are no more than 20% of total SNe Ia due to more careful treatment of mass transfer. Although the SN Ia birthrates in the present work are lower than those in Ilkov & Soker, the CD scenario cannot be ruled out as a viable mechanism for the formation of SNe Ia. Especially, SNe Ia with circumstellar material from this scenario contribute to 0.7-10% of total SNe Ia, which means that the CD scenario can reproduce the observed birthrates of SNe Ia like PTF 11kx. We also found that SNe Ia happen systemically earlier for a high value of metallicity and their birthrates increase with metallicity.
We extend the range of validity of the ARTIS 3D radiative transfer code up to hundreds of days after explosion, when Type Ia supernovae are in their nebular phase. To achieve this, we add a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) population and ionisation solver, a new multi-frequency radiation field model, and a new atomic dataset with forbidden transitions. We treat collisions with non-thermal leptons resulting from nuclear decays to account for their contribution to excitation, ionisation, and heating. We validate our method with a variety of tests including comparing our synthetic nebular spectra for the well-known one-dimensional W7 model with the results of other studies. As an illustrative application of the code, we present synthetic nebular spectra for the detonation of a sub-Chandrasekhar white dwarf in which the possible effects of gravitational settling of Ne22 prior to explosion have been explored. Specifically, we compare synthetic nebular spectra for a 1.06 M$_odot$ white dwarf model obtained when 5.5 Gyr of very-efficient settling is assumed to a similar model without settling. We find that this degree of Ne22 settling has only a modest effect on the resulting nebular spectra due to increased Ni58 abundance. Due to the high ionisation in sub-Chandrasekhar models, the nebular [Ni II] emission remains negligible, while the [Ni III] line strengths are increased and the overall ionisation balance is slightly lowered in the model with Ne22 settling. In common with previous studies of sub-Chandrasekhar models at nebular epochs, these models overproduce [Fe III] emission relative to [Fe II] in comparison to observations of normal Type Ia supernovae.
Double white dwarf binaries with merger timescales smaller than the Hubble time and with a total mass near the Chandrasekhar limit (i.e. classical Chandrasekhar population) or with high-mass primaries (i.e. sub-Chandrasekhar population) are potential supernova type Ia (SNIa) progenitors. However, we have not yet unambiguously confirmed the existence of these objects observationally, a fact that has been often used to criticise the relevance of double white dwarfs for producing SNIa. We analyse whether this lack of detections is due to observational effects. To that end we simulate the double white dwarf binary population in the Galaxy and obtain synthetic spectra for the SNIa progenitors. We demonstrate that their identification, based on the detection of Halpha double-lined profiles arising from the two white dwarfs in the synthetic spectra, is extremely challenging due to their intrinsic faintness. This translates into an observational probability of finding double white dwarf SNIa progenitors in the Galaxy of (2.1+-1.0)x10^{-5} and (0.8+-0.4)x10^{-5} for the classical Chandrasekhar and the sub-Chandrasekhar progenitor populations, respectively. Eclipsing double white dwarf SNIa progenitors are found to suffer from the same observational effect. The next generation of large-aperture telescopes are expected to help in increasing the probability for detection by ~1 order of magnitude. However, it is only with forthcoming observations such as those provided by LISA that we expect to unambiguously confirm or disprove the existence of double white dwarf SNIa progenitors and to test their importance for producing SNIa.
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