Evolution of fission-ignited supernova properties with uranium enrichment

Abstract

Type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are powerful stellar explosions that provide important distance indicators in cosmology. There is significant tension between values of the Hubble constant (expansion rate of the universe) determined from SN Ia and from other data. Recently, we proposed a new SN Ia mechanism that involves a nuclear fission chain reaction in an isolated white dwarf [PRL 126, 1311010]. We find the average mass of an exploding star decreases with increasing enrichment f 5 -the fraction of uranium that is the isotope 235 U. As a result, the average SN Ia luminosity decreases with increasing f 5 . Furthermore, f 5 is likely higher in the host galaxies of SN Ia observed at large redshift z because of younger galaxy ages. This change of f 5 leads to the evolution of SN Ia properties with redshift. If f 5 increases with redshift this results in an increased SN Ia rate, but a lower average SN Ia luminosity.