Timmes (1996)

Topics

• Ignition Conditions
• Flame Propagation
• Detonation, Deflagration,
Delayed Detonation,
Pulsational Detonation

• Light curves and cosmology

 Progenitor Hoyle & Fowler (1960)
Arnett (1968, 1969)
Nomoto, Sugimoto, & Neo (1976)

C,O white dwarf grows by accretion

Supersoft X-ray source?
Accretion rate about 10-7 solar masses/yr
Not a classical nova
Thin H,He shells (< 0.01 solar masses)
As   2 x109 gm cm-3 ; T  3 x108 K
Snuc (12 C 12 C)  S (plasma); M  1.38 M sun

Ignition near center

n.b.  9  2 to avoid nucleosynthesis problems

(Iwamoto et al. 1999; Woosley 1996)
 9  8 to avoid collapse
 (Starting from 1.38 solar masses
A Successful Model Must:
of carbon and oxygen)

• Produce approximately 0.6 solar masses

of 56Ni (0.1 to 1 Msun ) For the light

• Produce at least 0.2 solar masses

of SiSArCa For the spectrum

• Not make more than about 0.1 solar masses

of 54Fe and 58Ni combined For the nucleosynthesis

• And probably not have too much unburned

oxygen in close proximity to 56Ni For the spectrum

• Allow for some diversity

 It has been known for some time that the
way to achieve such results is with a flame
that starts slowly, pre-expands the star (so as
to avoid too much electron capture) then moves
very rapidly when  107 gm cm-3

Unfortunately the laminar flame has just

the opposite behavior.
The laminar flame slows down with time and
density and gets thicker
Brachwitz et al. (2000)
 For over 25 years the search has been
for the correct physics that would describe
this solution, i.e., a little burning at high
density and a lot of burning at low density.

• Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
• Turbulence
• Delayed Detonation
• Pulsational Detonation
• Off-center burning
 Ignition Conditions

• Supernova preceded by 1000 years of convection

URCA Process?
• Last "good convective model" is when the central
temperature has risen to 7 x 108 K

Pressure scale height: 400 km Convective speed: 5 km s-1

Nuclear time scale: 102 s Binding energy: 4 x 1050 erg

Convective time scale: 102 s Density: 2 x 109 g cm-3

Burning 0.05 solar masses can cause

expansion by a factor of three
Turbulent Convection
Kercek, Hillebrandt, & Truran (1998)
Detonation
Burning propagated by a shock wave. Pressure, density,
and temperature all rise in the shock. To initiate a detonation
one needs either an external piston or for a region to
runaway coherently in less than a sonic crossing time.

Deflagration

Burning as a subsonic flame. Pressure is constant

across the flame surface. Temperature rises, density
decreases. Such a flame sheet in a white dwarf is
Rayleigh-Taylor unstable, and that makes things hard.

In both cases, the burning temperature is 9 x 109 K

assuring that burning goes to nuclear statistical equilibrium.
Once ignited, a central
detonation will consume the
entire star. Converting it
entirely to iron group
elements.

The critical mass for a self-

sustaining detonation in carbon
at 2 x 109 gm cm-3
only 1015 gm. That is,
a length scale of 70 cm.

Why doesn't it happen?

Woosley (1990)
 1 In the absence of external
 d  nuc  forces, the only way an
   cS
 dr  isolated region can develop
a detonation is to have a
T supersonic phase velocity
imposed by the initial
conditions.
That means that the
reciprocal of the gradient
r of the nuclear burning
time scale must be
supersonic within a
critical mass

T But there can be no

temperature fluctuations in
the region that would lead to
premature burning.

r
To serve as a detonator, a region must run away
as a unit in approximately a sound crossing time.

Nuclear burning time scales as approximately T26

A region 100 km across can run away supersonically

then if all its components have the same burning
time to within 0.01 s, or, starting at 7 x 108 K,
the same total time to within 0.01 s/100 s = 0.01%.
In fact, this must be divided by the power of T
to which the nuclear energy generation is sensitive.

So temperature fluctuations greater than 5 x 10-6

are not allowed.
 Speculation

r  200 km  LP / 2

How many points and when and where

each ignites may have dramatic consequences
for the supernova (origin of diversity?)
Multi-point Ignition

Depends on:
C/O
ign
Blobs of various sizes
and released from
varying altitudes all
runaway at 100 km
to 300 km

Garcia-Senz and Woosley

ApJ, 454, 895, (1995)
 Igniting the star at a single
point off center gives very
different results than igniting
precisely at the center or
in a spherical volume.

This "single point ignition"

model did not produce a
supernova (pulsation would
have ensued)
 Ignition at 5 points
did produce a successful
supernova with 0.65
solar masses of burned
material, 0.5 solar
masses of which was
56Ni.

Note - this was a 2D

calculation.
 Recent simulations by Hillebrandt, Reinecke,
and Niemeyer show successful explosions (in 2D),
but the results are resolution sensitive.
 Does a Transition To
Detonation Happen?

• Could have desireable consequences if it

happened at r = 107 - 108 g cm-3

• The critical mass for ignition is not large

(about 50 m at 3 x 107 g cm-3 )

But a region larger than this must be well

mixed (nearly isothermal) and burn in a
sound crossing time.

Not possible while the flame is still alive!

 The Gibson Length
For a standard Kolmogorov picture of turbulence:
1/ 3
l
vl    vL v L 107 cm s -1
L
lGib is defined by: at L 106 cm
v lGib  u cond
1/ 3 3
 lGib 
i.e., u cond    u cond 
 vL lGib    L
 L   vL 

As density decreases , vcond decreases dramatically and

dcond also increases dramatically.

Eventually lGib < dcond

Three possibilities:

• Precondition the star so 1.0

that a large fraction 0.5 XC=0.2
ignites nearly simultaneously
• Mix a critical mass
thoroughly, then wait
for it to run away again
as the star continues to
expand

• Pulsational detonation

Or maybe there is no detonation...

 Difficulties

1) Volume detonation (Woosley 1993)

Try to generate sufficient
area so that:
 Area 
v eff   u
2  cond
 4 r 
 cS
The problem is that (for constant turbulent energy)
the area always adjusts so that veff = vL ~ 107 - 108 cm/s
D2 3
R  ucond 
e.g. v eff    ucond but, l  lGib    R and
l   vL 
D = 2.33 which implies veff = vL
2) Zeldovich detonation (Khokhlov 1990)

At e.g., 3 x 107 g cm-3, one must prepare a region

larger than Mcrit with small enough temperature
variations that burning occurs in a sound crossing
time. Moreover, this burning must occur in << tHD.

This is very difficult.

Must have an isolated eddy such that

tBURN(lcrit) > teddy(lcrit) evaluated at Tash

but tBURN << tHD

 "Sharp-Wheeler Model"

rSW  0.05 g eff t 2

vSW  0.1 g eff t 2

Model OK, but deficient in

Si, S, Ar, Ca
Why is there a Philipps Relation?
Pinto & Eastman (2000)
Broader = Brighter astro/ph-0006171

13,000 K Photons must diffuse

at peak light
through a forest of lines in a
differentially expanding
medium.

Doppler shift causes a

migration from line to line.

The trapped radiation is mostly uv and

the uv optical depth is very large.

Photons escape chiefly by fluorescence.

More 56Ni implies a larger luminosity
at peak. (Arnett's rule)

But more 56Ni also implies higher temperature

in the interior. This in turn implies that Fe, Co, Ni
are more highly ionized (III rather than II)

The more highly ionized Fe is less effective at

"Photon Splitting" than less ionized Fe

Hence hotter implies more optical opacity

(actually less optical efficiency)
 Light Curves
What matters?
There are potentially four major parameters
(and several minor ones)
• The mass of 56Ni
• The mass of 54Fe, 58Ni, and other stable
members of the iron group

• The mass of SiSArCa

• The explosion energy
Contained within these are a number of other parameters:
The ignition density, C/O ratio, detonation transition density, etc.
 An idealized model

Assume a starting mass of

1.38 solar masses, a central
density of 2 x 109 g cm-3
and a C/O ratio of 1::2

The final composition (3

variables) then defines the
model.
The final velocity distribution
is not very sensitive to
how the energy is deposited
(especially for the iron
containing region).
First results indicate the need for mixing: