The White Dwarfs in AM CVn systems - candidates for SN Ia?

Abstract

Thanks to the rapid increase of observations of Supernovae Ia, we may now claim that the Universe is accelerating. SN Ia are believed to be good standard candles, and after correcting the observations by various methods a precise Hubble diagram results. One of the most important problems to solve in astrophysics today is to find the progenitors of SN Ia. Candidates are to be found in close binary systems where one of the components may accumulate Chandrasekhar mass and then explode. We show that the AM CVn systems may contribute to the SNe population, but will not be the dominant contributor.