Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics | 2017 Sep 26
[img3="The remnant of Tycho’s supernova as seen in X-rays, showing the expanding shock wave. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS"]http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/477212/z ... 081650.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]An international team of scientists from the Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), the Towson and Pittsburgh Universities (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, has shed new light on the origins of the famous Tycho’s supernova. The research, published in Nature Astronomy, debunks the common view that Tycho’s supernova originated from a white dwarf, which had been slowly accreting matter from its companion in a binary system.
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) serve as standard candles of modern observational cosmology; they also play a vital role in galactic chemical evolution. However, the origin of these gigantic cosmic explosions remains uncertain. Although there is a nearly universal consensus that SNe Ia are a result of the thermonuclear disruption of a white dwarf consisting of carbon and oxygen reaching the Chandrasekhar mass limit (about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun), the exact nature of their progenitors is still unknown. The white dwarf could have been gradually accumulating matter from a companion star thus reaching the Chandrasekhar mass limit, at which point the nuclear runaway began; or the nuclear explosion could have been triggered by the merger of two white dwarfs in a compact binary system. These two scenarios differ dramatically in the level of electromagnetic emission expected from the progenitor during millions of years prior to the explosion. ...
No Hot and Luminous Progenitor for Tycho’s Supernova - T. E. Woods et al
- Nature Astronomy (online 25 Sep 2017) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-017-0263-5
