- Seminars and Workshops
- Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Location
CCMS R104
- Speaker Name
You-Hua Chu [ASIAA]
- State
Definitive
- Url
Searching for clues on supernovae (SNe) from their supernova remnants (SNRs) is like a crime scene investigation (CSI). This talk is based on Type Ia SNR work by my students and postdoc in Taiwan. Type Ia SNe have been used as standardizable candles to discover the accelerated expansion of the Universe; however, we still are not certain how Type Ia SNe exploded exactly. Two popular scenarios have been suggested, one involves a white dwarf (WD) having accreted too much material from a normal-star companion, and the other involves merger of two WDs. In the former scenario, the stellar companion survives the SN explosion, while in the latter scenario no stellar remnant is left. We have been studying the Type Ia SNRs in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using Hubble Space Telescope images to search for surviving companions of their SN progenitors and dense circumstellar material ejected by the SN progenitors. I will report our findings and suggest possible explosion mechanisms. I will also report on our search for young Type Ia SNRs in the M33 galaxy. The goal of this research is to understand the explosion mechanisms of Type Ia SNe.