Effects of a new triple-α\alpha reaction rate on the helium ignition of accreting white dwarfs

Effects of a new triple-alpha reaction rate on the ignition of carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium in a binary systems have been investigated. The ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear explosion of a Type Ia supernova. We examine the cases of different accretion rates of helium and different initial masses of the white dwarf, which was studied in detail by Nomoto. We find that for all cases from slow to intermediate accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers. As a consequence, carbon deflagration would be triggered for the lower accretion rate compared to that of $dM/dt\simeq 4\times10^{-8} M_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}$ which has been believed to the lower limit of the accretion rate for the deflagration supernova. Furthermore, off-center helium detonation should result for intermediate and slow accretion rates and the region of carbon deflagration for slow accretion rate is disappeared.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Mixing of Ejected Material in Supernova Remnant Cas A

Cas A is the well known supernova remnant and detailed observational data have been accumulated. In particular, recent observations suggest that the element distributions for silicon (Si) and iron (Fe) are very peculiar: Fe locates in front of Si. On the other hand, the distribution has not been well studied in connection with supernova remnants. Therefore, we investigate the formation of the remnant of Cas A. Hydrodynamical calculations are performed from the beginning of explosion to the present stage. Before the explosion, models of circumstellar matter are constructed, where the matter is assumed to be ejected from a progenitor. As the supernova simulation of explosion, two dimensional hydrodynamical calculations are performed. It is found that the Rayleigh-Taylor instability is developed from the boundary between hydrogen and helium layers.The instability between Si and Fe layers is not grown enough to induce the observed matter mixing if only the mass loss is included during the red super giant stage. We suggest that an instability at the boundary between Si and Fe layers ascribed to the mass loss during the Wolf-Rayet stage could explain the observations

Explosive Nucleosynthesis in Magnetohydrodynamical Jets from Collapsars II. Heavy-Element Nucleosynthesis of s, r, p-Processes

We investigate the nucleosynthesis in a massive star of 70 M_solar with solar metallicity in the main sequence stage. The helium core mass after hydrogen burning corresponds to 32 M_solar. Nucleosynthesis calculations have been performed during the stellar evolution and the jetlike supernova explosion of a collapsar model, where the weak s-, p-, and r-processes are taken into account. We confirm that s-elements of 60 < A < 90 are highly overproduced relative to the solar abundances in the hydrostatic nucleosynthesis. During oxygen burning, p-elements of A > 90 are produced via photodisintegrations of seed s-elements. However, the produced p-elements are disintegrated in later stages except for ^{180}Ta. In the explosive nucleosynthesis, elements of 90 < A < 160 are significantly overproduced relative to the solar values owing to the r-process. Only heavy p-elements (N > 50) are overproduced via the p-process. Compared with the previous study of r-process nucleosynthesis calculations in the collapsar model of 40 M_solar by Fujimoto et al. 2007, 2008, our jet model cannot contribute to the third peak of the solar r-elements and intermediate p-elements. Averaging the overproduction factors over the progenitor masses with the use of Salpeter's IMF, we suggest that the 70 M_solar star could contribute to the solar weak s-elements of 60 < A < 90 and neutron-rich elements of 90 < A < 160. We confirm the primary synthesis of light p-elements in the ejected matter of high peak temperature. The ejected matter has [Sr/Eu] \sim -0.4, which is different from that of a typical r-process-enriched star CS22892-052 ([Sr/Eu] \sim -1). We find that Sr-Y-Zr isotopes are primarily synthesized in the explosive nucleosynthesis in a similar process of the primary production of light p-elements, which has been considered as one of the sites of a lighter element primary process (LEPP).Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in Progress of Theoretical Physic

Reply to 'Comment on 'Heavy element production in inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis''

This is a reply report to astro-ph/0604264. We studied heavy element production in high baryon density region in early universe astro-ph/0507439. However it is claimed in astro-ph/0604264 that small scale but high baryon density region contradicts observations for the light element abundance or in order not to contradict to observations high density region must be so small that it cannot affect the present heavy element abundance. In this paper we study big bang nucleosynthesis in high baryon density region and show that in certain parameter spaces it is possible to produce enough amount of heavy element without contradiction to CMB and light element observations.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, References added, one more reference adde