BN4 - End of white dwarfs and type Ia Supernova |
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Speaker |
Santander-García, Miguel |
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Dying with style: merging white dwarfs can do it too |
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Abstract |
Most stars in the Universe end their lives by ejecting and shaping their outer envelope into a beautiful cloud of gas known as a planetary nebula. A few of the remaining white dwarfs happen to be part of binary systems with the right conditions to die again as a type Ia supernovae, following a theoretical path known as the single-degenerate scenario. But this does not seem to be the only way a white dwarf can actually produce a supernova. I will present the case of Henize 2-428, where both stars have already ejected their planetary nebulae and are destined to merge in ~700 million years. This is the first double-degenerate system which has, without any ambiguity, a total mass above the Chandrasekhar limit, thus supporting the theoretical double-degenerate path of formation of type Ia supernovae. |
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