Numerical Treatment of Shock-Induced Nuclear Burning in Double Detonation Type Ia Supernovae

TL;DR

This paper develops a benchmark for modeling shock-induced nuclear burning in Type Ia supernovae, showing that disabling burning in shocks improves simulation consistency across resolutions.

Contribution

It introduces a shock-detection criterion with a tunable parameter to better model nuclear burning in supernova simulations, emphasizing the importance of disabling burning in shocks at lower resolutions.

Findings

Convergence between models at high resolution when burning is enabled or disabled with f_shock=1.

Lower-resolution simulations are highly sensitive to the choice of f_shock.

Disabling burning in shocks is recommended for practical supernova modeling.

Abstract

We present a benchmark problem to assess the treatment of shock-induced nuclear burning in the context of double detonation Type Ia supernovae. In a stratified white dwarf model, we implement a shock-detection criterion that suppresses burning in zones characterized by compression and significant pressure gradients, controlled by a tunable parameter, $f_{\rm shock}$. One-dimensional simulations, using the open-source Castro suite, were conducted across three treatments - burning fully enabled, and burning suppressed with $f_{\rm shock} = 2/3$ and $f_{\rm shock} = 1$ - across three spatial resolutions (5.0, 2.5, and 0.3125 km). At the finest resolution, the burning-enabled and $f_{\rm shock} = 1$ models converge, while the $f_{\rm shock} = 2/3$ front continues to show slight offset behavior. Since most simulations are carried out at much lower resolutions, our tests support the idea that burning in shocks should always be disabled in practice. We also observe that the behavior of lower-resolution simulations remains extremely sensitive to the choice of $f_{\rm shock}$.