Scientific Colloquium
March 18, 2011


"A Holistic Study of Cosmic Explosions"

Throughout history, observational supernova (SN) studies have focused
almost exclusively on their strong optical emission that dominates the
bolometric luminosity.  Yet many of the leading breakthroughs in our
understanding of SNe and their progenitor systems have been enabled by
observations at other wavelengths.  For example, through the combination
of radio and gamma-ray observations, we now know that about 0.2 percent of
all core-collapse SNe have the ability to power relativistic gamma-ray burst
jets (GRBs).  With the recent serendipitous discovery of shock breakout
X-ray emission from an ordinary SN comes the observational realization of
a superior discovery technique for local core-collapse SNe from which data
encode the properties of the progenitor star in the moments leading up to
explosion.  Finally, as thermonuclear Type Ia SN studies are pushed toward
higher redshift and trusted to constrain the expansion history of the
Universe, the favored single-degenerate progenitor model is increasingly
called into question by sensitive radio and X-ray observations that have
yet to reveal any evidence for a non-degenerate companion star.
Theoretical considerations suggest that progenitor mass, metallicity,
angular momentum and binary interaction all play a role in the observed
properties of GRBs and SNe across the electromagnetic spectrum.  I will
discuss a fresh approach to bridging observations and theory of cosmic
explosions with an ultimate goal to shed light on the nature of their
progenitors, the physics of their explosions, and a better understanding
of their utility as high redshift probes.


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