  Type Ia supernovae are bright stellar explosions distinguished by
standardizable light curves that allow for their use as distance indicators for
cosmological studies. Despite the highly successful use of these events in this
capacity, many fundamental questions remain. Contemporary research investigates
how properties of the progenitor system that follow from the host galaxy such
as composition and age influence the brightness of an event with the goal of
better understanding and assessing the intrinsic scatter in the brightness. We
provide an overview of these supernovae and proposed progenitor systems, all of
which involve one or more compact stars known as white dwarfs. We describe
contemporary research investigating how the composition and structure of the
progenitor white dwarf systematically influences the explosion outcome assuming
the progenitor is a single white dwarf that has gained mass from a companion.
We present results illustrating some of these systematic effects from our
research.
