Title: Type Ia supernovae
Proposal ID: 0120049
Subject category: Nucleosynthesis
Principal investigator: Isern
Institute: Catalonia Space Studies Institute (IEEC-CSIC)
Abstract
The explosion mechanism associated with thermonuclear supernovae (SNIa) is still a matter of debate.
However, there is a wide agreement that high amounts of radioactive nuclei are produced during these events
and they are expected to be strong gamma-ray emitters able to be used as diagnostic tools of the explosion.
Detailed numerical simulations have convincingly shown that SPI and IBIS can be succesfully used to
discriminate among these explosion mechanisms provided the supernova occurs at an appropriate distance.
These tests include the temporal evolution of the lines as well the value of their relative intensities, the
properties of the continuum and the linewidths.
The data collected by the X-ray and optical monitors (JEM-X
and OMC) will also be analysed, as they can give additional information about the nature of the
presupernova system and the spatial heterogeneities of the ejecta.
The observation of type Ia supernovae is
one of the major scientific objectives of INTEGRAL. The probability of observing a close enough event is
good but not excessively high, so sufficient exposure time should be spent on such an event to extract the
maximum scientific information. We believe that the allocated time in the Core Program could not be high
enough, in particular if some other TOO have already consumed some of the available Core Program time.
Consequently, we risk to miss crucial information on SNIa. In this proposal we ask for a maximum of 2000 ks
(depending on the brightness of the supernova) of Open Time to ensure that all the relevant information will
be retained.