A Comparison of Carbon Deflagration Models for SN la

Abstract

The observational properties of Type la supernovae can be qualitatively explained in terms of the explosion of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf. For several years this hypothesis has gained support although there seems to be no clear understanding of how the white dwarf evolves to the appropriate conditions. Furthermore, the details of how degenerate carbon ignition occurs, and how the burning propagates are quite controversial. Recent studies on very fine mass scales tend to show that detonation is inevitable for one-dimensional models. Such a detonation, once formed, incinerates the entire star, leaving no significant quantity of the intermediate mass elements which are required in quantity to reproduce the observed spectra for the first two to three weeks following the explosion.