Constraining the Explosion Mechanism(s) and the Production of Chemical Elements in Type Ia Supernovae Using Their Light Curves and Spectra

Abstract:  The light curves and spectra of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) depend on multiple factors, such as the neutron excess in the chemical composition of the white dwarf (WD) progenitor, the central density of the WD, and the mechanism that triggers the detonation. These factors also play a central role in the nucleosynthesis that happens in SNe Ia. I describe recent hydrodynamic simulations and radiation transport calculations I and my collaborators have done for a variety of SNe Ia models. I discuss how recently identified properties of the optical and gamma-ray light curves and spectra, and the X-ray spectra from supernova remnants can be used to constrain the initial conditions and the explosion mechanism(s) in SNe Ia, improving our understanding of them. I then discuss how these properties can be used to determine the production of chemical elements in SNe Ia, which places constraints on nuclear reaction rates and is essential to modeling galactic chemical evolution. These results highlight the role of SNe Ia as nuclear laboratories in space.