Ignition of carbon burning from nuclear fission in compact stars
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
2022-08-11 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Nuclear Theory
Abstract
Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology. Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf (WD) [PRL 126, 1311010]. The first solids that form as a WD starts to freeze are actinide rich and potentially support a fission chain reaction. In this letter we explore thermonuclear ignition from fission heating. We perform thermal diffusion simulations and find at high densities, above about 7x10^8 g/cm^3, that the fission heating can ignite carbon burning. This could produce a SN Ia or another kind of astrophysical transient.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2208.00053,
title = {Ignition of carbon burning from nuclear fission in compact stars},
author = {C. J. Horowitz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.00053},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, Accepted ApJ Letters