Carbon burning cannot explain puffy hypervelocity white dwarfs

TL;DR

This study investigates whether long-lived stable carbon burning in white dwarf donors can explain the observed properties of hypervelocity white dwarfs, concluding it cannot due to the short inflation timescale.

Contribution

The paper models the effects of SN shock energy on CO white dwarfs and assesses the viability of C burning as an explanation for HVWD properties.

Findings

Stable C burning can be ignited in CO WDs with masses 0.95-1.10 M_sun.

Resulting stars have temperatures and radii similar to some HVWDs.

C-burning inflation lasts less than 10^5 years, shorter than observed HVWD ages.

Abstract

Several hypervelocity white dwarfs (HVWDs) with space velocities of $\gtrsim 1000\,\mathrm{kms}^{-1}$ have recently been discovered. One possible origin of these stars is the dynamically-driven double-degenerate double-detonation (D6) scenario, in which an accreting sub-Chandrasekhar mass carbon-oxygen (CO) WD detonates as a SN Ia. In this scenario, the less massive WD may survive its companion's detonation and be ejected as a HVWD. Most of the observed HVWDs are hotter and puffier than normal WDs, perhaps due to their recent proximity to a SN. In this work, we test whether these properties can be explained by long-lived stable carbon (C) burning in the interiors of CO WD donors triggered by a SN shock. We model the long-term evolution of CO WDs following rapid energy injection using 1D models. We find that stable C burning can be ignited in CO WDs with masses of $0.95 - 1.10\,M_{\odot}$ if SN energy penetrates sufficiently deeply. The resulting born-again stars settle on the C-burning main sequence while they convert their interiors from C and O to Ne and Mg, where they have temperatures and radii similar to some of the observed HVWDs. However, the timescale over which C-burning WDs remain inflated is $\lesssim 10^5\,$yr, which is at least an order of magnitude shorter than the kinematic ages of observed hot HVWDs. We conclude that observed HVWDs are unlikely to be inflated by C burning. The stellar evolution of observed HVWDs remains an open problem.