n calculating things like the rate of expansion of the universe. We use them all the time in cosmology. So, it's important to understand where they come from and characterize the white dwarfs that generate these explosions."
The next steps are to study elements other than nickel, in particular, manganese. Manganese production is very sensitive to the mass of the supernova that produces it, and therefore gives a precise way to validate the conclusions drawn by the nickel content.
The paper is titled "Evidence for Sub-Chandrasekhar Type Ia Supernovae from Stellar Abundances in Dwarf Galaxies." In addition to Kirby, co-authors are Justin L. Xie and Rachel Guo of Harvard University, Caltech graduate student Mithi A. C. de los Reyes, Maria Bergemann and Mikhail Kovalev of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Ken J. Shen of University of California Berkeley, and Anthony L. Piro and Andrew McWilliam of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, a Cottrell Scholar award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and Caltech.
Written by Lori Dajose