Seminar – Cosmic explosions

Artist’s impression of merging neutron stars
This artist’s impression shows two tiny but very dense neutron stars at the point at which they merge and explode as a kilonova. Such a very rare event is expected to produce both gravitational waves and a short gamma-ray burst, both of which were observed on 17 August 2017 by LIGO–Virgo and Fermi/INTEGRAL respectively. Subsequent detailed observations with many ESO telescopes confirmed that this object, seen in the galaxy NGC 4993 about 130 million light-years from the Earth, is indeed a kilonova. Such objects are the main source of very heavy chemical elements, such as gold and platinum, in the Universe. Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

Lecturer: Dr. Fabian Schneider

Term: Summer Semester 2020

About: Over the last years and decades, large surveys and new observatories have enabled an exquisite view onto the time-variable night sky. A plethora of transients has been discovered, for example supernovae, hypernovae, gamma-ray bursts, merging compact objects and the enigmatic fast radio bursts. Multi-messenger astronomy allows us to observe transients in the ‘usual’ electromagnetic light (e.g. optical, X-ray and radio), but also in neutrinos and gravitational waves. All transients are related to fascinating physics and, in this seminar, we will try to get an overview of the large zoo of explosive phenomena and what they can tell us about the Universe we live in.

Course homepage: https://uebungen.physik.uni-heidelberg.de/v/1135

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