All known Type Ia supernovae models fail to reproduce the observed bolometric luminosity-width correlation

Amir Sharon, Doron Kushnir, Nahliel Wygoda

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are widely believed to arise from thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs (WDs). However, ongoing debate surrounds their progenitor systems and the mechanisms triggering these explosions. Recently, Sharon & Kushnir showed that existing models do not reproduce the observed positive correlation between the gamma-ray escape time, t(0), and the synthesized Ni-56 mass, M-Ni56. Their analysis, while avoiding complex radiation transfer (RT) calculations, did not account for the viewing-angle dependence of the derived t(0) and M-Ni56 in multidimensional (multi-D) models during pre-nebular phases, where most observations performed. Here, we aim to identify an observational width-luminosity relation, similar to the t(0)-M-Ni56 relation to constrain multi-D models during pre-nebular phases while minimizing RT calculation uncertainties. We show that the bolometric luminosity at t <= 30 d since explosion can be accurately computed without non-thermal ionization considerations, which are computationally expensive and uncertain. We find that the ratio of the bolometric luminosity at 30 d since explosion to the peak luminosity, L-30/L-p, correlates strongly with t(0). Using a sample of well-observed SNe Ia, we show that this parameter tightly correlates with the peak luminosity, L-p. We compare the observed L-30/L-p-L(p )distribution with models from the literature, including non-spherical models consisting of head-on WD collisions and off-centred ignitions of sub-Chandrasekhar mass WDs. We find that all known SNe Ia models fail to reproduce the observed bolometric luminosity-width correlation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3247-3262
Number of pages16
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume540
Issue number4
Early online date17 Jun 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2025

Funding

We thank Boaz Katz for offering this work and for the useful discussions. We thank Stephane Blondin and John Hillier for their assistance regarding cmfgen. DK is supported by a research grant from the Abramson Family Center for Young Scientists and by the Minerva Stiftung.

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