Related papers: Effects of magnetic fields in white dwarfs
Recently, several white dwarfs have been proposed with masses significantly above the Chandrasekhar limit, known as Super-Chandrasekhar White Dwarfs, to account for the overluminous Type Ia supernovae. In the present work, Equation of State…
The flame born in the deep interior of a white dwarf that becomes a Type Ia supernova is subject to several instabilities. We briefly review these instabilities and the corresponding flame acceleration. We discuss the conditions necessary…
The existence of massive white dwarfs (WDs) containing more than Chandrasekhar's maximum mass has been suggested via the detection of peculiar type Ia Supernovae. It had been crucial to directly detect those 'super' (more…
Recent evidence of super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs (WDs), from the observations of over-luminous type Ia supernovae (SNeIa), has been a great astrophysical discovery. However, no such massive WDs have so far been observed directly as their…
Electron captures by atomic nuclei in dense matter are among the most important processes governing the late evolution of stars, limiting in particular the stability of white dwarfs. Despite considerable progress in the determination of the…
Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) are thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs in binary systems. They are central to galactic chemical evolution and serve as standardizable candles in cosmology, yet their progenitors remain uncertain. In this…
In order for a white dwarf (WD) to achieve the Chandrasekhar mass, M_C, and explode as a Type Ia supernova (SNIa), it must interact with another star, either accreting matter from or merging with it. The failure to identify the types of…
The merger of two white dwarfs (a.k.a. double degenerate merger) has often been cited as a potential progenitor of type Ia supernovae. Here we combine population synthesis, merger and explosion models with radiation-hydrodynamics…
Models for Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) are reviewed. It is shown that there are strong reasons to believe that most SNe Ia represent thermonuclear disruptions of C-O white dwarfs, when these white dwarfs reach the Chandrasekhar limit and…
In the single degenerate scenario for the progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), a white dwarf rapidly accretes hydrogen- or helium-rich material from its companion star, and appears as a supersoft X-ray source. This picture has been…
Two types of stars are known to have strong, large scale magnetic fields: the main sequence Ap stars and the magnetic white dwarfs. This suggest that the former might be the progenitors of the latter. In order to test this idea, I have…
Gravitational wave emission can lead to the coalescence of close pairs of compact objects orbiting each other. For the case of neutron stars such mergers may yield masses above the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit, leading to the formation…
Double white dwarf binaries are a leading explanation to the origin of type Ia supernovae, but no system exceeding the Chandrasekhar mass limit (1.4 M$_\odot$) has been found that will explode anywhere close to a Hubble time. Here, we…
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…
Our ongoing spectroscopic survey of high proper motion stars is a rich source of new magnetic white dwarfs. We present a few examples among cool white dwarfs showing the effect of field strength and geometry on the observed optical…
Because calibrated light curves of Type Ia supernovae have become a major tool to determine the local expansion rate of the Universe and also its geometrical structure, considerable attention has been given to models of these events over…
Although Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are a major tool in cosmology and play a key role in the chemical evolution of galaxies, the nature of their progenitor systems (apart from the fact that they must contain at least one white dwarf, that…
According to the fossil-field hypothesis magnetic fields are remnants of the previous stages of evolution. However, population synthesis calculations are unable to reproduce the magnetic white dwarf (MWD) sample without binary interaction…
The origin of magnetic fields in isolated and binary white dwarfs has been investigated in a series of recent papers. One proposal is that magnetic fields are generated through an alpha-omega dynamo during common envelope evolution. Here we…
The single-degenerate model for the progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is one of the two most popular models, in which a carbon-oxygen white dwarf (CO WD) accretes hydrogen-rich material from its companion, increases its mass to the…