On Measuring the Metallicity of a Type Ia Supernova's Progenitor

Understand

In Type Ia Supernovae (\sneia), the relative abundances of chemical elements are affected by the neutron excess in the composition of the progenitor white dwarf.

• Since these products leave signatures in the spectra near maximum light, spectral features may be used to constrain the composition of the progenitor.
• We calculate the nucleosynthetic yields for three \snia simulations, assuming single degenerate, Chandrasekhar mass progenitors, for a wide range of progenitor metallicities, and calculate synthetic light curves and spectra to explore correlations between progenitor metallicity and the strength of spectral features.
• We use two 2D simulations of the deflagration-detonation-transition scenario with different $^{56}$Ni yields and the W7 simulation to control for differences between explosion models and total yields.