We study the gravitationally confined detonation ( GCD ) model of Type Ia supernovae through the detonation phase and into homologous expansion .
In the GCD model , a detonation is triggered by the surface flow due to single point , off-center flame ignition in carbon-oxygen white dwarfs .
The simulations are unique in terms of the degree to which non-idealized physics is used to treat the reactive flow , including weak reaction rates and a time dependent treatment of material in nuclear statistical equilibrium ( NSE ) .
Careful attention is paid to accurately calculating the final composition of material which is burned to NSE and frozen out in the rapid expansion following the passage of a detonation wave over the high density core of the white dwarf ; and an efficient method for nucleosynthesis post-processing is developed which obviates the need for costly network calculations along tracer particle thermodynamic trajectories .
Observational diagnostics are presented for the explosion models , including abundance stratifications and integrated yields .
We find that for all of the ignition conditions studied here , a self regulating process comprised of neutronization and stellar expansion results in final ^ { 56 } Ni masses of \sim 1.1M _ { \odot } .
But , more energetic models result in larger total NSE and stable Fe peak yields .
The total yield of intermediate mass elements is \sim 0.1 M _ { \odot } and the explosion energies are all around 1.5 \times 10 ^ { 51 } ergs .
The explosion models are briefly compared to the inferred properties of recent Type Ia supernova observations .
The potential for surface detonation models to produce lower luminosity ( lower ^ { 56 } Ni mass ) supernovae is discussed .