Evolution of fission-ignited supernova properties with uranium enrichment

TL;DR

This paper explores how uranium enrichment levels in white dwarfs influence the properties of Type-Ia supernovae, affecting their luminosity and rate, with implications for cosmological measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a new supernova mechanism based on nuclear fission chain reactions and analyzes how uranium isotope enrichment impacts supernova luminosity and evolution.

Findings

Average supernova mass decreases with higher uranium-235 enrichment.

Supernova luminosity decreases as uranium-235 enrichment increases.

Higher uranium enrichment at large redshifts affects supernova rate and brightness.

Abstract

Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology. There is significant tension between values of the Hubble constant (expansion rate of the universe) determined from SN Ia and from other data. Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf [PRL 126, 1311010]. We find the average mass of an exploding star decreases with increasing enrichment f_5 -- the fraction of uranium that is the isotope U-235. As a result, the average SN Ia luminosity decreases with increasing f_5. Furthermore, f_5 is likely higher in the host galaxies of SN Ia observed at large redshift $z$ because of younger galaxy ages. This change of f_5 leads to the evolution of SN Ia properties with redshift. If f_5 increases with redshift this results in an increased SN Ia rate, but a lower average SN Ia luminosity.