SOME CONSTRAINTS ON THE LOWER MASS LIMIT FOR DOUBLE-DEGENERATE PROGENITORS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE

Recent theoretical and observational studies both argue that the merging of double carbon-oxygen white dwarfs (WDs) is responsible for at least some Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Previous (standard) studies of the anticipated SN birthrate from this channel have assumed that the merger process is conservative and that the primary criterion for explosion is that the merged mass exceeds the Chandrasekhar mass. Han & Webbink demonstrated that mass transfer and merger in close double WDs will in many cases be non-conservative. Pakmor et al. further suggested that the merger process should be violent in order to initiate an explosion. We have therefore investigated how the SN Ia birthrate from the double-degenerate (DD) channel is affected by these constraints. Using the binary-star population-synthesis method, we have calculated the DD SN Ia birthrate under conservative and non-conservative approximations, and including lower mass and mass-ratio limits indicated by recent smoothed-particle-hydrodynamic calculations. The predicted DD SN Ia rate is significantly reduced by all of these constraints. With dynamical mass loss alone (violent merger) the birthrate is reduced to 56% of the conservative rate. Requiring the mass ratio q > 2/3 further reduces the birthrate to 18% that of the standard assumption. An upper limit of 0.0061 SNuM, or a Galactic rate of 4.6 x 10(-4) yr(-1), might be realistic.