The rate of WD-WD head-on collisions in isolated triples is too low to explain standard type Ia supernovae

TL;DR

This study evaluates the potential of WD-WD collisions in isolated triple systems as progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, finding their contribution is too low to account for observed rates and their delay-time distribution is inconsistent with observations.

Contribution

The paper provides detailed population synthesis and dynamical modeling showing WD-WD collisions in triples are insufficient to explain most Type Ia supernovae.

Findings

WD-WD collision rate is about 0.1% of observed Ia-SNe rate

Delay-time distribution is nearly uniform, unlike observations

WD-WD collisions cannot be the main progenitors of Ia-SNe

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae (Ia-SNe) are thought to arise from the thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs (WDs). The progenitors of such explosions are still highly debated; in particular the conditions leading to detonations in WDs are not well understood in most of the suggested progenitor models. Nevertheless, direct head-on collisions of two WDs were shown to give rise to detonations and produce Ia-SNe - like explosions, and were suggested as possible progenitors. The rates of such collisions in dense globular clusters are far below the observed rates of type Ia SNe, but it was suggested that quasi-secular evolution of hierarchical triples could produce a high rate of such collisions. Here we used detailed triple stellar evolution populations synthesis models coupled with dynamical secular evolution to calculate the rates of WD-WD collisions in triples and their properties. We explored a range of models with different realistic initial conditions and derived the expected SNe total mass, mass-ratio and delay time distributions for each of the models. We find that the SNe rate from WD-WD collisions is of the order of 0.1% of the observed Ia-SNe rate across all our models, and the delay-time distribution is almost uniform in time, and is inconsistent with observations. We conclude that SNe from WD-WD collisions in isolated triples can at most provide for a small fraction of Ia-SNe, and can not serve as the main progenitors of such explosions.