THE PROGENITORS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE. I. ARE THEY SUPERSOFT SOURCES?
THE PROGENITORS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE. I. ARE THEY SUPERSOFT SOURCES?
In a canonical model, the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are accreting, nuclear-burning white dwarfs (NBWDs), which explode when the white dwarf reaches the Chandrasekhar mass, MC. Such massive NBWDs are hot (kT ∼ 100 eV), luminous (L ∼ 1038 erg s−1), and are potentially observable as luminous …