No Arabic abstract
Based mostly on stellar models which do not include rotation, CO white dwarfs which accrete helium at rates of about $sim 10^{-8}~mathrm{M}_odot/mathrm{yr}$ have been put forward as candidate progenitors for a number of transient astrophysical phenomena, including supernovae of Type Ia, and the peculiar and fainter Type Iax supernovae. Here we study the impact of accretion-induced spin-up including the subsequent magnetic field generation, angular momentum transport, and viscous heating on the white dwarf evolution up to the point of helium ignition. We resolve the structure of the helium accreting white dwarf models with a one dimensional Langrangian hydrodynamic code, modified to include rotational and magnetic effects. We find magnetic angular momentum transport, which leads to quasi solid-body rotation, profoundly impacts the evolution of the white dwarf models. Our rotating lower mass ($0.54$ and $0.82~mathrm{M}_odot$) models accrete up to 50% more mass up to ignition compared to the non-rotating case and the opposite for our more massive models. Furthermore, we find that rotation leads to up to 10-times smaller helium ignition densities, except for the lowest adopted initial white dwarf mass. Ignition densities of order $10^6,mathrm{g/cm}^3$ are only found for the lowest accretion rates and for large amounts of accreted helium $gtrsim 0.4,mathrm{M}_odot$. However, correspondingly massive donor stars would transfer mass at much higher rates. We expect explosive He-shell burning to mostly occur as deflagrations and at $dot{M}>2cdot10^{-8}~mathrm{M}_odot/mathrm{yr}$, regardless of white dwarf mass. Our results imply that helium accretion onto CO white dwarfs at the considered rates is unlikely to lead to explosions of the CO core or to classical Type,Ia supernovae, but may instead produce events like faint and fast hydrogen-free supernovae.
Type Ia supernovae (SNe) are thought to originate from the thermonuclear explosions of carbon-oxygen (CO) white dwarfs (WDs). The proposed progenitors of standard type Ia SNe have been studied for decades and can be, generally, divided into explosions of CO WDs accreting material from stellar non-degenerate companions (single-degenerate; SD models), and those arising from the explosive interaction of two CO WDs (double-degenerate; DD models). However, current models for the progenitors of such SNe fail to reproduce the diverse properties of the observed explosions, nor do they explain the inferred rates and the characteristics of the observed populations of type Ia SNe and their expected progenitors. Here we show that the little-studied mergers of CO-WDs with hybrid Helium-CO (He-CO) WDs can provide for a significant fraction of the normal type Ia SNe. Here we use detailed thermonuclear-hydrodynamical and radiative-transfer models to show that a wide range of mergers of CO WDs with hybrid He-CO WDs can give rise to normal type Ia SNe. We find that such He-enriched mergers give rise to explosions for which the synthetic light-curves and spectra resemble those of observed type Ia SNe, and in particular, they can produce a wide range of peak-luminosities, MB(MR)~ 18.4 to 19.2 (~ 18.5 to 19:45), consistent with those observed for normal type Ia SNe. Moreover, our population synthesis models show that, together with the contribution from mergers of massive double CO-WDs (producing the more luminous SNe), they can potentially reproduce the full range of type Ia SNe, their rate and delay-time distribution.
With the increasing number of observed magnetic white dwarfs (WDs), the role of magnetic field of the WD in both single and binary evolutions should draw more attentions. In this study, we investigate the WD/main-sequence star binary evolution with the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA code), by considering WDs with non-, intermediate and high magnetic field strength. We mainly focus on how the strong magnetic field of the WD (in a polar-like system) affects the binary evolution towards type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The accreted matter goes along the magnetic field lines and falls down onto polar caps, and it can be confined by the strong magnetic field of the WD, so that the enhanced isotropic pole-mass transfer rate can let the WD grow in mass even with a low mass donor with the low Roche-lobe overflow mass transfer rate. The results under the magnetic confinement model show that both initial parameter space for SNe Ia and characteristics of the donors after SNe Ia are quite distinguishable from those found in pervious SNe Ia progenitor models. The predicted natures of the donors are compatible with the non-detection of a companion in several SN remnants and nearby SNe.
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play a crucial role as standardizable cosmological candles, though the nature of their progenitors is a subject of active investigation. Recent observational and theoretical work has pointed to merging white dwarf binaries, referred to as the double-degenerate channel, as the possible progenitor systems for some SNe Ia. Additionally, recent theoretical work suggests that mergers which fail to detonate may produce magnetized, rapidly-rotating white dwarfs. In this paper, we present the first multidimensional simulations of the post-merger evolution of white dwarf binaries to include the effect of the magnetic field. In these systems, the two white dwarfs complete a final merger on a dynamical timescale, and are tidally disrupted, producing a rapidly-rotating white dwarf merger surrounded by a hot corona and a thick, differentially-rotating disk. The disk is strongly susceptible to the magnetorotational instability (MRI), and we demonstrate that this leads to the rapid growth of an initially dynamically weak magnetic field in the disk, the spin-down of the white dwarf merger, and to the subsequent central ignition of the white dwarf merger. Additionally, these magnetized models exhibit new features not present in prior hydrodynamic studies of white dwarf mergers, including the development of MRI turbulence in the hot disk, magnetized outflows carrying a significant fraction of the disk mass, and the magnetization of the white dwarf merger to field strengths $sim 2 times 10^8$ G. We discuss the impact of our findings on the origins, circumstellar media, and observed properties of SNe Ia and magnetized white dwarfs.
Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) and Symbiotic Binaries are close (or not so close) binary star systems which contain both a white dwarf (WD) primary and a larger cooler secondary star that typically fills its Roche Lobe. The cooler star is losing mass through the inner Lagrangian point of the binary and a fraction of this material is accreted by the WD. Here we report on our hydrodynamic studies of the thermonuclear runaway (TNR) in the accreted material that ends in a Classical Nova explosion. We have followed the evolution of the TNRs on both carbon-oxygen (CO) and oxygen-neon (ONe) WDs. We report on 3 studies in this paper. First, simulations in which we accrete only solar matter using NOVA (our 1-D, fully implicit, hydro code). Second, we use MESA for similar studies in which we accrete only Solar matter and compare the results. Third, we accrete solar matter until the TNR is ongoing and then switch the composition in the accreted layers to a mixed composition: either 25% WD and 75% solar or 50% WD and 50% Solar matter. We find that the amount of accreted material is inversely proportional to the initial 12C abundance (as expected). Thus, accreting solar matter results in a larger amount of accreted material to fuel the outburst; much larger than in earlier studies where a mixed composition was assumed from the beginning of the simulation. Our most important result is that all these simulations eject significantly less mass than accreted and, therefore, the WD is growing in mass toward the Chandrasekhar Limit.
We perform binary evolution calculations on helium star - carbon-oxygen white dwarf (CO WD) binaries using the stellar evolution code MESA. This single degenerate channel may contribute significantly to thermonuclear supernovae at short delay times. We examine the thermal-timescale mass transfer from a 1.1 - 2.0 $M_{odot}$ helium star to a 0.90 - 1.05 $M_{odot}$ CO WD for initial orbital periods in the range 0.05 - 1 day. Systems in this range may produce a thermonuclear supernova, helium novae, a helium star - oxygen-neon WD binary, or a detached double CO WD binary. Our time-dependent calculations that resolve the stellar structures of both binary components allow accurate distinction between the eventual formation of a thermonuclear supernova (via central ignition of carbon burning) and that of an ONe WD (in the case of off-center ignition). Furthermore, we investigate the effect of a slow WD wind which implies a specific angular momentum loss from the binary that is larger than typically assumed. We find that this does not significantly alter the region of parameter space over which systems evolve toward thermonuclear supernovae. Our determination of the correspondence between initial binary parameters and the final outcome informs population synthesis studies of the contribution of the helium donor channel to thermonuclear supernovae. In addition, we constrain the orbital properties and observable stellar properties of the progenitor binaries of thermonuclear supernovae and helium novae.