2006A&A...460..793S

We present ⁵⁶Ni mass estimates for seventeen well-observed type Ia supernovae determined by two independent methods. Estimates of the ⁵⁶Ni mass for each type Ia supernova are determined from (1) modeling of the late-time nebular spectrum and (2) through the combination of the peak bolometric luminosity with Arnett's rule. The attractiveness of this approach is that the comparison of estimated ⁵⁶Ni masses circumvents errors associated with the uncertainty in the adopted values of reddening and distance. We demonstrate that these two methods provide consistent estimates of the amount of ⁵⁶Ni synthesized. We also find a strong correlation between the derived ⁵⁶Ni mass and the absolute B-band magnitude (M_B). Spectral synthesis can be used as a diagnostic to study the explosion mechanism. By obtaining more nebular spectra the ⁵⁶Ni-M_B correlation can be calibrated, and be used to investigate any potential systematic effects this relationship may have upon the determination of cosmological parameters, and provide a new manner to estimate extra-galactic distances of nearby type Ia supernovae.