Binary population synthesis study of the supersoft X-ray phase of single degenerate type Ia supernova progenitors

Abstract

In the single degenerate (SD) scenario for type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), a mass-accreting white dwarf is expected to experience a supersoft X-ray source (SSS) phase. However, some recent observations showed that the expected number of mass-accreting WDs is much lower than that predicted from theory, regardless of whether they are in spiral or elliptical galaxies. In this paper, we performed a binary population synthesis study on the relative duration of the SSS phase to their whole mass-increasing phase of WDs leading to SNe Ia. We found that for about 40% of the progenitor systems, the relative duration is shorter than 2% and the evolution of the mean relative duration shows that it is always smaller than 5%, both for young and old SNe Ia. In addition, before the SNe Ia explosions, more than 55% of the progenitor systems were experiencing a dwarf novae phase and no more than 10% were staying in the SSS phase. These results are consistent with the recent observations and imply that both in early- and late-type galaxies, only a small fraction of mass-accreting WDs resulting in SNe Ia contributes to the supersoft X-ray flux. So, although our results are not directly related to the X-ray output of the SN Ia progenitor, the low supersoft X-ray luminosity observed in early type galaxies may not be able to exclude the validity of the SD model. On the contrary, it is evidence to support the SD scenario.