Detonations in Type Ia supernova explosions

Abstract

Within an established collaborate European effort in modeling Type Ia supernovae a novel scenario of these astrophysical explosions shall be simulated with high resolution. Key aspects are: world- wide leading hydrodynamical simulations of Type Ia supernova explosions, followed by a European multi - national, multi - site postprocessing workflow involving groups from Germany, Italy, Sweden and Russia. A previous DECI project successfully simulated a Type Ia supernova explosion as a turbulent subsonic thermonuclear combustion. With this subsonic burning mode alone, however, it seems unlikely to reach the range of observed stronger astrophysical events. The new results from the previous project indicate that in the late burning stages conditions for a transition to a supersonic flame propagation mode, a so- called detonation, may be met. In order to model these conditions reliably, a highly resolved simulation is the aim of the proposed project. This way a model of this new scenario of Type Ia supernova explosions can be build that is consistent with current knowledge on turbulence- induced transitions to detonations. Deriving observables from the results of the simulation allows the validation of this scenario by comparison with actual Type Ia supernova observations.