1
The Department of Physics and Astronomy
present
X-rays Mark the Spot: The Birth of a Supernova
by
Dr. Alicia Soderberg
Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow
Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
Institute for Theory and Computation
on
Wednesday November 11th at 4:00 PM
in
F. W. Olin Hall, Room 105
The University of Denver
2190 East Iliff Avenue
Denver, Colorado 80208
Observational studies of supernova (SN) explosions over more than a century have focused almost exclusively on the 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. In this talk I will describe some of these observations. Specifically, our recent serendipitous discovery of shock breakout X-ray emission from an ordinary SN provides a superior discovery technique for core-collapse SNe, as well as a way to probe the properties of the progenitor star up to the moment of explosion.
HOST: Dr. Jennifer Hoffman, (303) 871-2268, Jennifer.Hoffman@du.edu
Refreshments at 3:50 p.m. in Olin 105
Join us for follow-up discussions in Physics Building Room 116, 5:00-6:00 PM
November 04, 2009