Two possible fates await this collapsing white dwarf. If the collapsing core can achieve high
enough temperatures, nuclear burning will begin and the stellar pressure will increase. This
nuclear burning can drive nature’s largest nuclear bomb, producing type Ia supernovae. However,
neutrino emission from electron capture (e.g., URCA processes) can damp this burning until the
core has collapsed too deeply into its gravitational well for nuclear burning to turn around
the collapse. The result of this collapse is the formation of a neutron star. Electron capture
will dominate if the density at which nuclear ignition occurs exceeds a critical density .
For C-O white dwarfs,
is in the range
[32
]. For O-Ne-Mg white
dwarfs, electron capture may be stronger than nuclear burning under most conditions (if a
Rayleigh-Taylor instability does not produce a turbulent burn front) [187
, 127
]. The collapse
of an O-Ne-Mg white dwarf begins when its central density reaches
. (For
more details about the conditions under which AIC occurs, see [187
, 127, 32, 31, 156
].) The
dynamics of the collapse itself are somewhat similar to the dynamics of core collapse SNe: the
collapse proceeds until the core reaches nuclear densities, the core then bounces and sends out a
bounce shock that stalls when it becomes optically thin to neutrinos and loses its thermal energy.
However, there is very little envelope around this core to prevent an explosion and the shock can
easily be revived to drive a low-mass explosion. Exactly how much matter is ejected depends
upon the details of the collapse calculation (compare [114, 263
, 82
]). Less than
will likely be ejected by the star (due to the bounce itself or due to neutrino absorption/wind
mechanisms) [82
].
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