The Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Series presents Edward Baron of Oklahoma University on “Using the Observed Diversity of Type Ia Supernovae to Understand the Physics of the Phenomenons” on Friday, April 8, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245.
Edward Baron
Abstract: Type Ia Supernovae (SN Ia) are well understood to be thermonuclear explosions of carbon and oxygen white dwarfs that accrete mass from companion stars. Using empirical calibrations, SNe Ia are powerful cosmological probes that were used to discover Dark Energy. While it had been thought that all SNe Ia were the result of the explosion of a white dwarf when it reached the Chandrasekhar mass, in the last decade it has been realized that SNe Ia are more diverse than had been previously believed leading to the speculation that the progenitor masses may vary. I describe why the physics of SNe Ia is extremely complex, and discuss some attempts to understand the physics by a combination of modeling and detailed examination of the data.
Comments