Detection of circumstellar material in a normal Type Ia Supernova
Abstract
Type Ia supernovae are thought to be thermonuclear explosions of accreting white dwarfs that reach a critical mass limit. Despite their importance as cosmological distance indicators, the nature of their progenitors has remained controversial. Here we report the detection of circumstellar material in a normal Type Ia supernova. The expansion velocities, densities and dimensions of the circumstellar envelope indicate that this material was ejected from the progenitor system. The relatively low expansion velocities appear to favor a progenitor system where a white dwarf accretes material from a companion star which is in the red-giant phase at the time of explosion.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0707.2793,
title = {Detection of circumstellar material in a normal Type Ia Supernova},
author = {F. Patat and P. Chandra and R. Chevalier and S. Justham and Ph. Podsiadlowski and C. Wolf and A. Gal-Yam and L. Pasquini and I. A. Crawford and P. A. Mazzali and A. W. A. Pauldrach and K. Nomoto and S. Benetti and E. Cappellaro and N. Elias-Rosa and W. Hillebrandt and D. C. Leonard and A. Pastorello and A. Renzini and F. Sabbadin and J. D. Simon and M. Turatto},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.2793},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
25 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Science. Full resolution version at http://www.hq.eso.org/~fpatat/science/sn06X/preprint.pdf . The original paper can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1143005