No surviving evolved companions to the progenitor of supernova SN 1006

Type Ia supernovae are thought to occur as a white dwarf made of carbon and oxygen accretes sufficient mass to trigger a thermonuclear explosion$^{1}$. The accretion could occur slowly from an unevolved (main-sequence) or evolved (subgiant or giant) star$^{2,3}$, that being dubbed the single-degenerate channel, or rapidly as it breaks up a smaller orbiting white dwarf (the double- degenerate channel)$^{3,4}$. Obviously, a companion will survive the explosion only in the single-degenerate channel$^{5}$. Both channels might contribute to the production of type Ia supernovae$^{6,7}$ but their relative proportions still remain a fundamental puzzle in astronomy. Previous searches for remnant companions have revealed one possible case for SN 1572$^{8,9}$, though that has been criticized$^{10}$. More recently, observations have restricted surviving companions to be small, main-sequence stars$^{11,12,13}$, ruling out giant companions, though still allowing the single-degenerate channel. Here we report the result of a search for surviving companions to the progenitor of SN 1006$^{14}$. None of the stars within 4' of the apparent site of the explosion is associated with the supernova remnant, so we can firmly exclude all giant and subgiant companions to the progenitor. Combined with the previous results, less than 20 per cent of type Iae occur through the single degenerate channel.Comment: Published as a letter in Nature (2012 September 27

Model-independent bounds probing on the electromagnetic dipole moments of the τ\tau-lepton at the CLIC

We establish model independent bounds on the anomalous magnetic and electric dipole moments of the tau-lepton using the two-photon processes $\gamma\gamma \to \tau^+\tau^-$ and $\gamma\gamma \to \tau^+\tau^-\gamma$. We use ${\cal L}=10, 50, 100, 300, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000 \hspace{0.8mm}fb^{-1}$ of data collected with the future $e^+e^-$ linear collider such as the CLIC at $\sqrt{s}=380, 1500, 3000 \hspace{0.8mm}GeV$ and we consider systematic uncertainties of $\delta_{sys}=0, 3, 5\hspace{1mm}\%$. Precise bounds at $95\%$ C. L. on the anomalous dipole moments to the tau-lepton $-0.00015\leq \tilde{a}_\tau \leq 0.00017$ and $|\tilde{d}_\tau(ecm)|=9.040\times 10^{-19}$ are set from our study. Our results show that the processes under consideration are a very good prospect for probing the dipole moments of the tau-lepton at the future $e^+e^-$ linear collider at the $\gamma\gamma$ mode.Comment: 38 pages, 26 figure