Revealing progenitors of type Ia supernovae from their light curves and spectra

Abstract

Abstract In the single degenerate (SD) scenario of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), the collision of the ejecta with its companion results in stripping hydrogen-rich matter from the companion star. This hydrogen-rich matter might leave its trace in the light curves and/or spectra. In this paper, we perform radiation hydrodynamical simulations of this collision for three binary systems. As a result, we find that the emission from the shock-heated region is not as strong as in previous studies. This weak emission, however, may be a result of our underestimation of the coupling between the gas and radiation in the shock interaction. Therefore, though our results suggest that the observed early light curves of SNe Ia cannot rule out a binary system with a short separation as the progenitor system, more elaborate numerical studies will be needed to reach a fair conclusion. Alternatively, our results indicate that the feature observed in the early phase of a recent type Ia SN 2014J might result from interaction of the ejecta with a red giant companion star. We also discuss the dependence of spectral features of Hα and Si ii absorption lines on viewing angles and investigate whether they can constrain the event rate of the SD progenitor.