Abstract
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are standardizable cosmological candles which led to the dis-covery of accelerating universe. However the physics of how white dwarfs explode and lead to SNe Ia is still poorly understood. The initiation of the detonation front which rapidly disrupts the white dwarf is a crucial element of the puzzle. Global 3D simulations of SNe Ia cannot resolve the length scales crucial to detonation initiation. In this work, we have per-formed local 3D hydrodynamical simulations of strongly-driven turbulence within electron-degenerate carbon-oxygen white dwarf matter. We show that intermittent dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy locally enhances the carbon nuclear burning rate by orders of mag-nitude above the mean. We demonstrate that within these local hot spots, the nuclear burning time becomes smaller than the eddy turnover time, and leads to a detonation. Thus turbulence plays a key role in creating the hot spots and preconditioning the carbon-oxygen fuel for a detonation.