Double-detonation supernovae of sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs

Understand

In the "double-detonation sub-Chandrasekhar" model for type Ia supernovae, a carbon-oxygen (C + O) white dwarf accumulates sufficient amounts of helium such that a detonation ignites in that layer before the Chandrasekhar mass is reached.

• This detonation is thought to trigger a secondary detonation in the C + O core.
• By means of one- and two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate the robustness of this explosion mechanism for generic 1-M_sun models and analyze its observable predictions.
• Also a resolution dependence in numerical simulations is analyzed.