  Over the past decades, many explosion scenarios for Type Ia supernovae have
been proposed and investigated including various combinations of deflagrations
and detonations in white dwarfs of different masses up to the Chandrasekhar
mass. One of these is the gravitationally confined detonation model. In this
case a weak deflagration burns to the surface, wraps around the bound core, and
collides at the antipode. A subsequent detonation is then initiated in the
collision area. Since the parameter space for this scenario, that is, varying
central densities and ignition geometries, has not been studied in detail, we
used pure deflagration models of a previous parameter study dedicated to Type
Iax supernovae as initial models to investigate the gravitationally confined
detonation scenario. We aim to judge whether this channel can account for one
of the many subgroups of Type Ia supernovae, or even normal events. To this
end, we employed a comprehensive pipeline for three-dimensional Type Ia
supernova modeling that consists of hydrodynamic explosion simulations, nuclear
network calculations, and radiative transfer. The observables extracted from
the radiative transfer are then compared to observed light curves and spectra.
The study produces a wide range in masses of synthesized 56 Ni ranging from
0.257 to 1.057 $M_\odot$ , and, thus, can potentially account for subluminous
as well as overluminous Type Ia supernovae in terms of brightness. However, a
rough agreement with observed light curves and spectra can only be found for
91T-like objects. Although several discrepancies remain, we conclude that the
gravitationally confined detonation model cannot be ruled out as a mechanism to
produce 91T-like objects. However, the models do not provide a good explanation
for either normal Type Ia supernovae or Type Iax supernovae.
