Diverse Energy Sources for Supernovae

Lars Bildsten

March 01, 2011

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Abstract: The theoretical community is beginning to appreciate (and predict) the potential diversity of explosive outcomes from stellar evolution while the supernovae surveys are finding new kinds of supernovae. I will speak about two such new supernovae. The first are ultraluminous core collapse supernovae with radiated energies approaching 1051 ergs. I will present our recent work that explains these events with late-time energy deposition from rapidly rotating, highly magnetized neutron stars: magnetars. I will close with our theoretical work on helium shell detonations on accreting white dwarfs that predict a new class of supernovae; called “.Ia’s”. The first such candidate may well have been found by the Palomar Transient Factory.