2017/10/31 by Ken J. Shen, Silvia Toonen, Or Graur
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Chandrasekhar limit #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Light curve #Luminosity #Luminosity function #Observatory #Physics #Population #Star formation #Stars #Stellar evolution #Stellar population #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supernova #Type (biology) #White dwarf #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aaa015
Accepted for publication in ApJL. Minor changes to previous version for clarity. Data used to construct the observational CDFs in Figure 4 are available in an ancillary file
arxiv created 2017/12/07 · openalex publication_date 2017/12/20 · arxiv updated 2017/12/27 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) exhibit a wide diversity of peak luminosities and light curve shapes: the faintest SNe Ia are 10 times less luminous and evolve more rapidly than the brightest SNe Ia. Their differing characteristics also extend to their stellar age distributions, with fainter SNe Ia preferentially occurring in old stellar populations and vice versa. In this Letter, we quantify this SN Ia luminosity–stellar age connection using data from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS). Our binary population synthesis calculations agree qualitatively with the observed trend in the old populations probed by LOSS if the majority of SNe Ia arise from prompt detonations of sub-Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs (WDs) in double WD systems. Under appropriate assumptions, we show that double WD systems with less massive primaries, which yield fainter SNe Ia, interact and explode at older ages than those with more massive primaries. We find that prompt detonations in double WD systems are capable of reproducing the observed evolution of the SN Ia luminosity function, a constraint that any SN Ia progenitor scenario must confront.