THE DETONATION MECHANISM OF THE PULSATIONALLY ASSISTED GRAVITATIONALLY CONFINED DETONATION MODEL OF Type Ia SUPERNOVAE

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 759; no. 1; pp. 1 - 15
• Main Authors: Jordan, G C, Graziani, C, Fisher, R T, Townsley, D M, Meakin, C, Weide, K, Reid, L B, Norris, J, Hudson, R, Lamb, D Q
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-11-2012
• Subjects: ASHES; ASTRONOMY; ASTROPHYSICS; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; BINDING ENERGY; COLLISIONS; Composing; Computer simulation; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; Deflagration; DENSITY; Detonation; ELEMENT ABUNDANCE; HYDRODYNAMICS; KINETIC ENERGY; Mathematical models; NICKEL 56; NUCLEAR REACTION YIELD; NUCLEOSYNTHESIS; SUPERNOVAE; SURFACES; Three dimensional; WHITE DWARF STARS
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/759/1/53

We describe the detonation mechanism composing the "pulsationally assisted" gravitationally confined detonation (GCD) model of Type Ia supernovae. This model is analogous to the previous GCD model reported in Jordan etal.; however, the chosen initial conditions produce a substantively different detonation mechanism, resulting from a larger energy release during the deflagration phase. The resulting final kinetic energy and super(56)Ni yields conform better to observational values than is the case for the "classical" GCD models. We demonstrate feasibility of this scenario with three three-dimensional (3D), full star simulations of this model using the FLASH code. We characterized the simulations by the energy released during the deflagration phase, which ranged from 38% to 78% of the white dwarf's binding energy. We show that the necessary conditions for detonation are achieved in all three of the models.