White Dwarf Collisions, a promising scenario to account for meteoritic anomalies

TL;DR

This paper proposes that collisions between white dwarfs, though rare, could produce stardust with unique chemical signatures, potentially explaining anomalies found in primitive meteorites.

Contribution

It introduces a white dwarf collision scenario as a novel explanation for meteoritic anomalies, linking astrophysical events to chemical irregularities in meteorites.

Findings

White dwarf collisions can produce mass ejections containing stardust.

Such ejected material may explain chemical anomalies in meteorites.

The scenario links astrophysical phenomena to meteoritic composition anomalies.

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that collisions between white dwarfs (WD) are rare events that only occur in the dense interior of globular clusters or in the dense outskirts around the central galactic black holes, and are therefore disregarded as an important source of Type Ia supernovae (SNIa). Although the majority of these encounters will not result in a SNIa event, many of them will produce mass ejections. Under the appropriate circumstances, this material can become part of a protostar nebula, including the pre-solar one, in the form of stardust leading to the existence of chemical anomalies in meteorites. We describe a WD-WD collision scenario that potentially might explain the so called Ne-E anomaly found in some primitive meteorites like Orgueil and Murchison.