Townsley and L. B., 2004, Ap. J., 600, 390 (Theoretical overview)

Townsley and L.B., 2005, Ap. J., 628, 395 (Classical Novae)

Scannapieco and L.B., 2005, Ap. J., 629, L85 (Type Ia SN Rates)

L.B., Townsley, Deloye & Nelemans 2006, Ap. J., 640, 466 (AM CVn)

Shen and L. B. 2007, Ap J, 660, 1444 (Stable H/He Burning)

L.B., Shen, Weinberg & Nelemans 2007, Ap J., 662, L95 (Faint .Ia SN)

Piro and L.B., 2008, Ap J., 673, 1009 (Simmering and 56Ni in Ia)

Shen and L.B., 2008, submitted to Ap J (Unstable H burning)

L.B. 2008, in preparation (Survey Expectations)

Until the final explosion of an accreting WD as a Type Ia supernovae, the brightest manifestations of mass transfer are thermonuclear ignitions of accreted Hydrogen and Helium. The current and upcoming transient and SNe surveys are bound to reveal new populations and puzzles.

Diversity of Type Ia SNe: Challenges and Opportunities

PN image from HSTRing Nebulae (M 57)

Young White Dwarf

Stars with < 6-8 solar masses make a Carbon/Oxygen white dwarf of mass 0.5-1.0 with radius ~ Earth and central density >106 gr/cm3

Kalirai et al ‘07

Kalirai et al ‘07

1.05 or so

500 100 50Stellar Lifetime (Myr)

Piro ‘05

White Dwarfs Accreting H or He~1% of white dwarfs

are in binaries where accretion occurs, releasing gravitational energy

Whereas nuclear fusion of H=>He or He=>C releases

This contrast is further enhanced when the white dwarf stores fuel and burns it rapidly, making these binaries detectable in distant galaxies during thermonuclear events.

Donor star can be H/He or pure He

White Dwarf of Carbon/Oxygen

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

M87 in Virgo

Some numbers

• 20 Classical Novae (Hydrogen fuel) per year, implying a white dwarf/main sequence contact binary birthrate (Townsley & LB 2005) of one every 400 years.

• One Type Ia Supernovae every 250 years, or one in 500 WDs explode in an old galaxy!

In 1011 solar masses of old stars (e.g. Elliptical galaxy), two WDs are made per year. The observed rates for thermonuclear events are:

Helium novae every ~250 years, one large He explosion (.Ia; Bildsten et al. ‘07) every ~5,000 years. Double WD mergers every 200 years

Predicted rates are:

Type Ia Supernovae from AccretionThe ‘standard’ story (Nomoto, Thielemann &

Yokoi ‘84) is 12C ignition in the core leading to a full explosion, implying that:

• The density must >109 gr/cm3 in the cold (~108 K) core to trigger C burning. This requires M>1.34 and accumulation of mass during accretion. . .

• Challenge is the outcome of H and He burning, and how mass accumulates to trigger C ignition in the core, leading to many progenitor scenarios.

12C+12C ignition

Hydrogen Burning is Usually Unstable

Townsley & Bildsten 2005Supersoft Sources: Burn H Stably (van den Heuvel et al 1992), or weakly unstableCataclysmic Variables (CVs): undergo unstable burning, leading to Classical Novae. Accumulated mass appears to leave, observed CN rate reveals population.

Accumulated mass

AM CVn Binaries: Pure Helium Accretors!• Found by Humason and Zwicky

(‘47) as faint blue stars, spectra by Greenstein & Matthews (‘57) only showed helium lines.• Later work found 17 minutes orbital period• The accretor is a C/O or O/Ne WD, where the donor is a degenerate Helium WD.

• Giving an orbital period-donor mass relation,

and donor masses ranging from 0.006-0.12 Msun

RXJ0806 5.35 minV407 Vul 9.49 ES Cet 10.3 AM Cvn 17.1 HP Lib 18.4CR Boo 24.5KL Dra 25.0V803 Cen 26.9SDSSJ0926 28.3CP Eri 28.42003aw 33.9SDSSJ1240 37.4SDSSJ1411 46.0GP Com 46.5SDSSJ1552 56.7 CE 315 65.1+ 3 new (SDSS)

GP COMThe fate of 1 in 2000 white dwarfs in our galactic disk. But none yet seen in other galaxies.

These are the brightest Sources for Space-Based Gravitational Wave Detectors (e.g. LISA)

• Early in the evolution, many helium flashes with masses less than 0.01 that would appear as long-lived Classical Novae (e.g. V445 Pup).

• The last flash has the largest mass (0.03 in these cases), and occurs at 10-7-10-8 Msun/year (depending on the accreting WD mass)

• Last flash is large enough to detonate and eject <0.1 of radioactive material, creating a faint supernovae (Bildsten et al. 2007)

• If every AM CVn gives a .Ia, their rate would be 2-7 % of the Type Ia rate in an Elliptical Galaxy.

Iben & Tutukov ‘89 He Ignition Mass

Thermonuclear Supernova Lightcurves• Type Ia result from burning a solar mass of

C/O to ~0.6 solar masses of 56Ni (rest burned to Si, Ca, Fe) and ejected at 10,000 km/sec. • This matter would cool by adiabatic expansion, but instead is heated by the radioactive decay chain 56Ni=>56Co=>56Fe• Arnett (1982) (also Pinto & Eastman 2000) showed that the peak in the lightcurve occurs when the radiation diffusion time through the envelope equals the time since explosion, giving

• The luminosity at peak is set by the instantaneous radioactive decay heating rate ==> can measure the 56Ni mass via the peak luminosity, yielding 0.1-1.2 solar masses.

Bolometric LCs

Contardo et al. ‘00, A&A, 359, 876

Subluminous1991bg

“Super” luminous 1991T

• The small ignition masses (0.02-0.1) only burns the helium, which leaves the WD at 10,000 km/sec, leading to rapid rise times.

• The radioactive decays of the fresh 48Cr (1.3 d), 52Fe (0.5 d) and 56Ni (8.8 d) will provide power on this rapid timescale!!

L. B., Shen, Weinberg & Nelemans ‘07

.Ia Supernovae*

*Thanks to Chris Stubbs for the name

x10

Thermonuclear Lightcurves

Bildsten ‘08

• 2003fg (Howell et al) was a very bright event (2006gz plotted here)

• 1991bg is the prototype subluminous SN

• The .Ia’s are calculation from Kasen (priv. comm.)

• 1991T is the bright class seen only in star-forming galaxies (young ages!)

• 1992A is ‘typical’

Phillips Relations

Garnavich et al ‘00

• The sub-luminous Ia’s fit within the continuum of the Phillip’s relation, extending down by nearly 2.5 mags.

• Most prevalent in E/S0 galaxies (Howell ‘01, van den Bergh et al ‘03)

• Still other odd ones (2002cx)!

2002cx2006gz

Topical Because of New Surveys!

Pan-Starrs1 (2008)

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Dilday et al 2008)

Medium deep survey (V=24, 50 deg2) gets 10 .Ia per year at -17, and 1 per year at -15

Current survey (V=22.5, 258 deg2) will find 7 .Ia per year at -17, and 0.5 per year at -15. Total duration = 9 months…. so maybe one in sample

Even More!ROTSE (now)

Palomar Transient Factory (2008)

SkyMapper (2008)

LSST (2014) Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a proposed 8.4-meter, 10 square-degree-field telescope that will provide V=24 imaging across the entire sky every night.

Daily survey 1/2 sky would ~1000 .Ia’s per year.

Cerra Pachon, Chile.

Supernovae and Transients

Kulkarni et al (2007)

IIP’s

.Ia’s

Survey Volumes and Discovery!

• The boxes plot the volume rate * duration for Type Ia (30 d), Type IIp (100 d), .Ia (5 d), M85-OT (60 d), CN (30 d), and last thermal pulses (2 years) • SDSS SN survey (solid line) and PS1 Med. Deep (dashed line) are shown. The line is 1 event visible per “exposure”.

• Heavy solid line is LSST at V=24 with 20,000 deg2

• What to do with 10,000 SNe?

Bildsten, in prep.

LSST

1 per exposure (SDSS & PS1)SNLS (24.3, 4 deg2)

Bildsten ‘08

Type Ia Supernovae Dependence on Galaxy Type

and Cosmic RatesObserved trends in Ia properties with galaxy type (no evidence yet for metallicity effects) will hopefully identify progenitors:1. Brightest (e.g. 1991T) events occur

preferentially in young stellar environments (hence mostly spiral and irregular galaxies)

2. Sub-luminous (and peculiar, eg. 1991bg) Ia’s dramatically prefer old stellar populations . . (Elliptical and S0 Galaxies)

3. Rates track BOTH the stellar mass and the star formation rate

4. The odd 2002cx-likes are only seen in star forming galaxies

Ia’s are clearly the result of old and young stellar populations and motivated our (Scannapieco & LB, 2005) simple explanation for the observed cosmic Ia rate. Sullivan et al. (2007) used CFHT SNLS data to go much further!

Recent CFHT and SDSS Results Neill et al (2007) astroph-0701161 Dilday et al. astroph 0801.3297

SDSS

The Type Ia rate was higher in the past by at least a factor of 3, pointing to rapid channels of explosion.

Conclusions• Clear puzzles remain in connecting accreting WDs to their exploding Type Ia counterparts

• .Ia SN expected from AM CVn binaries (which came from double WDs) and should be revealed in upcoming surveys.

• The current and about to commence SNe surveys should yield explicit dependence of Ia properties with host galaxy types, hopefully informing us about the progenitor(s) and mechanism(s) that yield at least 4 distinct classes.

Clearly much more to learn about thermonuclear events on accreting white dwarfs!!