The fraction of type Ia supernovae exploding inside planetary nebulae (SNIPs)

Abstract

Using three independent directions we estimate that the fraction of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) exploding inside planetary nebulae (PNe), termed SNIPs, is at least ∼ 20%. Our three directions are as follows. (i) Taking the variable sodium absorption lines in some SN Ia to originate in a massive circumstellar matter (CSM), as has been claimed recently, we use the results of Sternberg et al. (2014) to imply that 20% of SN Ia occur inside a PN (or a PN descendant), hence classify them as SNIPs. (ii) We next use results that show that whenever there are hydrogen lines in SN Ia the hydrogen mass in the CSM is large 1M ⊙ , hence the explosion is a SNIP. We make the simplest assumption that the probability for explosion is constant in time for up to about 10 5 yrs after the merger of the core with the white dwarf (WD) in the frame of the coredegenerate scenario. This results with at least few ×10% of SNe Ia that may have a SNIP origin. (iii) We examine the X-ray morphologies of 13 well-resolved close-by SN remnants (SNRs) Ia and derive a crude upper limit, according to which 10−30% of all SNRs Ia possess opposite ear-like features, which we take as evidence of SNIP origin. Our results, together with several other recent results, lead us to conclude that the two scenarios most contributing to SNe Ia are the core degenerate and the double degenerate scenarios. Together these two account for > 95% of all SNe Ia.

Planetary nebula progenitors that swallow binary systems

“…As well, the multitude of processes place PNe on the crossroad of many astrophysical objects, e.g., novae, symbiotic binaries, and massive binary systems such as η Carinae, and of many generic astrophysical evolutionary phases, e.g., CEE, jet-inflated bubbles, and stellar merger . PNe are directly connected also to type Ia supernovae (Tsebrenko & Soker 2015) and to intermediate luminosity optical transients (ILOTs; Soker & Kashi 2012). These processes and objects involve strongly interacting binary systems.…”

The circumstellar matter of supernova 2014J and the core-degenerate scenario

“…In PTF 11kx the CD scenario is the only one among the scenarios studied here that can account for the mass and properties of the CSM . Including other observational properties of SN Ia that were listed by Tsebrenko & Soker (2015a) in their table 1, I find the CD scenario to be the favorable one for SN Ia, possibly together with the DD scenario. The automatic attribution of any CSM material around SN Ia to the SD scenario should be abandon.…”

“…This adds to the several problems the WWC scenario encounters when compared with observations (Tsebrenko & Soker 2015a), despite the one strong character that the ignition is easy to achieve in the collision process. The most sever problem of the WWC scenario is that it cannot account for more than about one percent of all SN Ia (e.g., Soker et al 2014; see section 2 in the first astro-ph version of that paper, arXiv:1309.0368v1).…”

“…The proposed scenario implies that SN 2014J is a SN-Inside a PN (SNIP; Dickel & Jones 1985;Tsebrenko & Soker 2013, 2015a.…”

“…There is as of yet no consensus on the scenario that brings a WD or two to explode. In recent years there have been several different scenarios, that were classified into five categories by Tsebrenko & Soker (2015a). We list them below by their alphabetical order, and cite only a limited fraction of the literature on each scenario.…”