Lighting the Standard Candle
Ed Brown
MSU/JINA
Type Ia Supernovae, the thermonuclear incineration of white dwarf stars,
are among the brightest stellar explosions in the universe. They produce
roughly half of the iron-peak isotopes in the universe, represent an
extreme endpoint of binary stellar evolution, and play a critical role in
efforts to determine the equation of state of the universe. Despite this,
we still lack a picture of which evolutionary channels lead to type Ia
supernovae, and we do not have a complete understanding of what controls
the variations in peak brightness between supernovae. In this talk, I'll
highlight some of the recent discoveries about the population of type Ia
supernovae, and discuss recent work aimed at understanding the influence
that the progenitor white dwarf has on the outcome of the explosion.
Date: | Tuesday, 17 February 2009 |
Time: | 16:00 |
Where: | McGill University |
| Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103) |
|