Supernovae

A snapshot of a three-dimensional simulation of core-collapse supernovae. See Abdikamalov et al (2015) for details.

Core-collapse supernovae

Core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) are the powerful explosion that take place at the end of lives of many massive stars. They plan an important roles in the evolution of the universe. They produce many elements heavy that iron. The supernova blast expels these elements into the interstellar medium, enriching galaxies with heavy elements. If explosion is successful, then supernovae leave behind neutron stars. If not - or if the explosion is partially successfull - then they may produce black hole. Despite their importance and decades of effort, the exact details of how these stars explode remain uncertain. At ECL, we investigate the explosion mechasim of these supernovae.

Gravitational Waves

Gravitational waves are ripples of spacetime that travel at the seed of time predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago. These waves were first detected in 2015. The most powerful sources and inspiraling binary black holes or neutron stars and signals from these events are now routinely observed by the international network of detectors. While not yet detected, core-collapse supernovae emit gravitational waves too.  If detected, these signals can be used to learn more about the source. At ECL, we investigate gravitational wave signal from supernovae and employ machine learning to probe the properties of the source using the signal. Check out our recent paper here