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[45.08] Helium Accretion and Detonation on White Dwarfs

M. Lazarova (Sweet Briar College)

I investigate helium accretion on a carbon-oxygen white dwarf (WD) of sub-Chandrasekhar mass, 0.8 solar masses, followin the nucleosynthesis and the hydrodynamic phases of evolution. The effects of the WD's initial mass and the accretion rate on the critical mass for thermonuclear runaway are studied. Exploratory calculations are performed using a reduced reaction network -- including only 19 isotopes -- and with an extended adaptive network - including upto 2554 isotopes. In order to reproduce the runaway mass of the calculations by Goriely et al. (2002) who found a critical mass of 0.18 solar masses, we needed to use a lower accretion rate when using a more realistic initial composition for accreted He-rich material.

This research was sponsored by the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM.

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.