Non-Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium Radiative Transfer Simulations of Sub-Chandrasekhar-Mass White Dwarf Detonations

Understand

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) span a range of luminosities and timescales, from rapidly evolving subluminous to slowly evolving overluminous subtypes.

• Previous theoretical work has, for the most part, been unable to match the entire breadth of observed SNe Ia with one progenitor scenario.
• Here, for the first time, we apply non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiative transfer calculations to a range of accurate explosion models of sub-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarf detonations.
• The resulting photometry and spectra are in excellent agreement with the range of observed non-peculiar SNe Ia through 15 d after the time of B-band maximum, yielding one of the first examples of a quantitative match to the entire Phillips (1993) relation.