Resonance Effects in Carbon Burning Process on Type Ia Supernovae

¹ National Astronomical Observatory of Japan 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588 Japan
² Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan
³ Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008 USA
⁴ School of Physics and Nuclear Energy Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China

^* e-mail: kanji.mori@nao.ac.jp
^** e-mail: michael.famiano@wmich.edu
^*** e-mail: kajino@nao.ac.jp

Published online: 29 June 2018

Abstract

The ¹²C+¹²C reaction plays an important role in type Ia supernovae. However, its cross section with astrophysical low energy has not been measured. If there is an unknown resonance in the low energy region, the reaction rate is enhanced and can affect astrophysics. We impose an upper limit to the resonance strength using the Wigner limit and find that the reaction rate can be larger than a standard rate by ~ 103 times in astrophysical temperature. We apply this enhanced reaction rate to binary mergers of two white dwarfs (WDs). We find that the fate of WD-WD mergers changes due to the resonance. The accretion induced collapse to neutron stars becomes more likely to occur, while it becomes more diffcult to explain SNe Ia from WD-WD mergers.