Related papers: Actinide crystallization and fission reactions in …
The first solids that form as a white dwarf (WD) starts to crystallize are expected to be greatly enriched in actinides. Previously [PRL 126, 1311010] we found that these solids might support a nuclear fission chain reaction that could…
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)…
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 [PRL…
White dwarfs (WDs) embedded in gaseous disks of active galactic nucleus (AGNs) can rapidly accrete materials from the disks and grow in mass to reach or even exceed the Chandrasekhar limit. Binary WD (BWD) mergers are also believed to occur…
Context: Superluminous type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) may be explained by super-Chandrasekhar-mass explosions of rapidly rotating white dwarfs (WDs). In a preceding paper, we showed that the deflagration scenario applied to rapidly rotating…
Recently, Cheng et al. identified a number of massive white dwarfs (WD) that appear to have an additional heat source providing a luminosity near $\approx 10^{-3}L_\odot$ for multiple Gyr. In this paper we explore heating from electron…
Thermonuclear (type Ia) supernovae are explosions in accreting white dwarfs, but the exact scenario leading to these explosions is still unclear. An important step to clarify this point is to understand the behaviour of accreting white…
Type Ia supernovae are thought to result from thermonuclear explosions of carbon-oxygen white dwarf stars. This model generally explains the observed properties with certain exceptions, like sub-luminous supernovae. Here we discuss the…
We study stellar binary evolution that leads to the formation of a white dwarf (WD) that explodes in a thermonuclear supernova at the termination of a common envelope evolution (CEE) shortly before the core of its companion explodes as a…
It was recently demonstrated that asymmetric dark matter can ignite supernovae by collecting and collapsing inside lone sub-Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs, and that this may be the cause of Type Ia supernovae. A ball of asymmetric dark…
Dark matter (DM) which sufficiently heats a local region in a white dwarf will trigger runaway fusion, igniting a type Ia supernova (SN). In a companion paper, this instability was used to constrain DM heavier than $10^{16}$ GeV which…
We examine catalogs of white dwarfs (WDs) and find that there are sufficient number of massive WDs, M_WD > 1.35Mo, that might potentially explode as type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in the frame of the core degenerate scenario. In the core…
We examine rare evolutionary routes of binary systems where the initially more massive primary star of ~5.5-8.5Mo, forms a white dwarf (WD), while the secondary star of 4Mo < M_2,0 < M_1,0 accretes mass from the evolved primary and later…
The astrophysical origins of the heaviest stable elements that we observe today in the Solar System are still not fully understood. Recent studies have demonstrated that H-accreting white dwarfs (WDs) in a binary sys- tem exploding as type…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play a key role in measuring cosmological parameters, in which the Phillips relation is adopted. However, the origin of the relation is still unclear. Several parameters are suggested, e.g. the relative content…
Type Ia supernovae are the outcome of the explosion of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf in a close binary system. They are thought to be the main contributors to the galactic nucleosynthesis of iron-peak elements, with important contributions to…
We argue that the properties of the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) SN 2011fe can be best explained within the frame of the core-degenerate (CD) scenario. In the CD scenario a white dwarf (WD) merges with the core of an asymptotic giant branch…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have been an important tool for astronomy for quite some time; however, the nature of their progenitors remains somewhat mysterious. Recent theoretical studies indicated the possibility of producing thermonuclear…
White dwarf stars composed of carbon, oxygen or heavier elements are expected to crystallize as they cool down below certain temperatures. Yet, simple arguments suggest that the helium white dwarf cores may not solidify, mostly because of…
We have investigated the origin of a sub-class of carbon-polluted white dwarfs (DQ) originally identified as the ``hot DQ" white dwarfs. These objects are relatively hot (10 000 < T_eff < 25 000 K), have markedly higher carbon abundance…