Speaker
Assaf Sternberg
(TUM)
Description
Type Ia supernovae are very luminous transients that are used as cosmological standard candles for measuring distances on a cosmic scale. It is widely accepted that they are the thermonuclear explosion of carbon-oxygen white-dwarf stars in close binary system. Despite numerous studies, the nature of the companion star remains uncertain and under much debate. A main discriminant between the proposed progenitor models is the predicted circumstellar environment in which the white-dwarfs are embedded at the time of their explosion. Therefore, studying the circumstellar environment of type Ia supernovae can help us validate which progenitor channel, or channels, can lead to these brilliant events. High-resolution spectroscopy is currently the most promising method with which one can probe the circumstellar material on the line-of-sight to a type Ia supernova, using the supernova as a back-light. In this talk Assaf will present an overview of the high-spectral-resolution studies that have been performed in recent years, what we have learned from them, and what we can do in the future to get us closer to solving the long standing type Ia supernova progenitor mystery.
