2008/05/31 by Izumi Hachisu, Mariko Kato, Ken'ichi Nomoto · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/591646
5 pages including 2 figures, to appear in ApJL (accepted version)
arxiv created 2008/07/08 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We present a theoretical delay-time distribution (DTD) of Type Ia supernovae on the basis of our new evolutionary models of single-degenerate (SD) progenitor systems. Our model DTD has almost a featureless power law shape (∝ t −n with n ≈ 1) for the delay time from t ∼ 0.1 to 10 Gyr. This is in good agreement with the recent direct measurement of DTDs. The observed featureless property of the DTD has been suggested to be favorable for the double-degenerate (DD) scenario but not for the SD scenario. If the mass range of the companion star to the white dwarf (WD) were too narrow in the SD model, its DTD would be too limited around the companion's main-sequence lifetime to be consistent with the observed DTD. However, this is not the case in our SD model that consists of the two channels of WD+RG (red giant) and WD+MS (main-sequence star). In these channels, the companion stars have a mass range of ~0.9-3 M ☉ (WD+RG) and ~2-6 M ☉ (WD+MS). The combined mass range is wide enough to yield the featureless DTD. We emphasize that the SD scenario should include two important processes: the optically thick winds from the mass-accreting WD and the mass-stripping from the companion star by the WD wind.