James Keegans (Hull)

The precise mechanism of SNIa explosions remains an unsolved problem in astrophysics. Previous work in the literature has identified 55Mn as a key discriminator, with 55Mn being preferentially produced in higher mass progenitors. We show that the production of 55Mn is sensitive in all masses of progenitor to the initial metallicity of the system, which weakens the constraint of 55Mn as a tracer for the initial mass. Our suite of 39 metallicity dependent post-processed models presents a unique opportunity to explore isotopic ratios which present a strong constraint on the progenitor mass over all realistic progenitor metallicities. We present isotopic ratios which may provide a mechanism by which the ratio of sub- to Chandrasekhar mass WDs may be determined, given appropriate constraints on the contributions of other stellar sources.