Samuel Falle (Leeds) – Detonation Waves in Type Ia Supernovae

Type Ia supernova are known  to be thermonuclear explosions in a carbon-oxygen white dwarf that has acquired a helium envelope by accretion from a close companion star. The consensus model is that a flame starts at the centre of such a star and then becomes a detonation.  This only works if the star is close to its maximum possible mass, the Chandrakhar mass (~ 1.4 solar masses).

I will discuss an alternative model in which a detonation in the helium envelope triggers a detonation the carbon-oxygen core. Recent work has shown that such a model could explain all "normal" type Ia supernovae, but there are disparities in length scales that make direct numerical simulations extremely difficult.  The talk will consider some alternative techniques, such as front tracking using level set methods.