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No surviving evolved companions of the progenitor of SN 1006

Nature volume 489, pages 533–536 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Type Ia supernovae are thought to occur when a white dwarf made of carbon and oxygen accretes sufficient mass to trigger a thermonuclear explosion1. The accretion could be slow, from an unevolved (main-sequence) or evolved (subgiant or giant) star2,3 (the single-degenerate channel), or rapid, as the primary star breaks up a smaller orbiting white dwarf3,4 (the double-degenerate channel). A companion star will survive the explosion only in the single-degenerate channel5. Both channels might contribute to the production of type Ia supernovae6,7, but the relative proportions of their contributions remain a fundamental puzzle in astronomy. Previous searches for remnant companions have revealed one possible case for SN 1572 (refs 8, 9), although that has been questioned10. More recently, observations have restricted surviving companions to be small, main-sequence stars11,12,13, ruling out giant companions but still allowing the single-degenerate channel. Here we report the results of a search for surviving companions of the progenitor of SN 1006 (ref. 14). None of the stars within 4 arc minutes of the apparent site of the explosion is associated with the supernova remnant, and we can firmly exclude all giant and subgiant stars from being companions of the progenitor. In combination with previous results, our findings indicate that fewer than 20 per cent of type Ia supernovae occur through the single-degenerate channel.

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Figure 1: R-band image of the SN 1006 field.
Figure 2: Observed UVES spectra of the candidate giant stars.
Figure 3: Stellar abundance ratios [X/Fe] of several Fe-peak elements.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and the Comunidad de Madrid, and is based on observations collected with the UVES spectrograph at the VLT/UT2 8.2-m Kueyen Telescope (ESO run ID, 69.D-0397(A)) at the Paranal Observatory, Chile. We are grateful to the Cerro Paranal Observatory staff and to the User Support Department of ESO for their help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain ,

    Jonay I. González Hernández

  2. Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain,

    Jonay I. González Hernández

  3. Instituto de Física Fundamental, CSIC, E-28006 Madrid, Spain ,

    Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente

  4. Department of Astronomy, Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès 1, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain,

    Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente, Ramon Canal & Javier Méndez

  5. Departamento de Astrofísica y Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain,

    Hugo M. Tabernero & David Montes

  6. Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, PO Box 321, E-38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain ,

    Javier Méndez

  7. INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy ,

    Luigi R. Bedin

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  1. Jonay I. González Hernández
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Contributions

J.I.G.H. performed the chemical abundance analysis of the observed UVES spectra and determined the distances to the targets. J.I.G.H. and P.R.-L. wrote the paper. P.R.-L. was the Principal Investigator of the ESO proposal. R.C. and J.M. also participated in the ESO proposal. H.M.T. and D.M. derived the stellar parameters and created figures showing the observed spectra. R.C. and P.R.-L. contributed to the astrophysical interpretation of the results. J.M. and L.R.B. collected the photometric data and created figures showing the field and the supernova remnant. All the authors provided comments and contributed to the text of the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jonay I. González Hernández or Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text and Data 1-3, Supplementary Figures 1-3, Supplementary References and Supplementary Tables 1-4. (PDF 1413 kb)

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González Hernández, J., Ruiz-Lapuente, P., Tabernero, H. et al. No surviving evolved companions of the progenitor of SN 1006. Nature 489, 533–536 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11447

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