All known Type Ia supernovae models fail to reproduce the observed bolometric luminosity-width correlation

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that all existing Type Ia supernova models fail to replicate the observed correlation between luminosity and width, challenging current theoretical understanding of their explosion mechanisms.

Contribution

The paper introduces an observational luminosity-width relation during pre-nebular phases to test multi-dimensional supernova models, revealing their failure to match observed correlations.

Findings

All known SNe Ia models fail to reproduce the observed luminosity-width correlation.

The ratio of luminosity at 30 days to peak luminosity correlates with the gamma-ray escape time.

The proposed luminosity ratio tightly correlates with peak luminosity in observed supernovae.

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are widely believed to arise from thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs (WDs). However, ongoing debate surrounds their progenitor systems and the mechanisms triggering these explosions. Recently, Sharon \& Kushnir showed that existing models do not reproduce the observed positive correlation between the $\gamma$-ray escape time, $t_0$, and the synthesized $^{56}$Ni mass, $M_\mathrm{Ni56}$. Their analysis, while avoiding complex radiation transfer (RT) calculations, did not account for the viewing-angle dependence of the derived $t_0$ and $M_\mathrm{Ni56}$ in multi-dimensional (multi-D) models during pre-nebular phases, where most observations performed. Here, we aim to identify an observational width-luminosity relation, similar to the $t_0$-$M_\mathrm{Ni56}$ relation to constrain multi-D models during pre-nebular phases while minimizing RT calculation uncertainties. We show that the bolometric luminosity at $t\le30$ days since explosion can be accurately computed without non-thermal ionization considerations, which are computationally expensive and uncertain. We find that the ratio of the bolometric luminosity at 30 days since explosion to the peak luminosity, $L_{30}/Lp$, correlates strongly with $t_0$. Using a sample of well-observed SNe Ia, we show that this parameter tightly correlates with the peak luminosity, $L_p$. We compare the observed $L_{30}/Lp$-$L_p$ distribution with models from the literature, including non-spherical models consisting of head-on WD collisions and off-centered ignitions of sub-Chandrasekhar mass WDs. We find that all known SNe Ia models fail to reproduce the observed bolometric luminosity-width correlation.