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2D simulations of the double-detonation model for thermonuclear transients from low-mass carbon-oxygen white dwarfs

Thermonuclear explosions may arise in binaries in which a CO white dwarf (WD) accretes He from a companion. If the accretion rate allows a sufficiently large mass of He to accumulate prior to ignition of nuclear burning, the He surface layer may detonate, giving rise to an astrophysical transient. Detonation of the He layer generates shock waves that propagate into the underlying CO WD. This might directly ignite a detonation at the edge of the CO WD or compress the core of the WD sufficiently to trigger a CO detonation near the centre. If either ignition mechanism works, the two detonations can release sufficient energy to completely unbind the WD. Here we extend our 2D studies of this double-detonation model to low-mass CO WDs. We investigate the feasibility of triggering a secondary core detonation by shock convergence in low-mass CO WDs and the observable consequences of such a detonation. Our results suggest that core detonation is probable, even for the lowest CO core masses realized in nature. We compute spectra and light curves for models in which either an edge-lit or compression-triggered CO detonation is assumed to occur and compare these to models in which no CO detonation was allowed to occur. If significant shock compression of the CO WD occurs prior to detonation, explosion of the CO WD can produce a sufficiently large mass of radioactive iron-group nuclei to affect the light curves. In particular, this can lead to relatively slow post-maximum decline. If the secondary detonation is edge-lit, however, the CO WD explosion primarily yields intermediate-mass elements that affect the observables more subtly. In this case, NIR observations and detailed spectroscopic analysis would be needed to determine whether core detonation occurred. We comment on the implications of our results for understanding peculiar astrophysical transients including SN 2002bj, SN 2010X and SN 2005E.