Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2011
Volume 56, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 30–May 3 2011; Anaheim, California
Session T3: The Death of Massive Stars |
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Sponsoring Units: DAP Chair: Alicia Soderberg, Harvard University Room: Garden 3 |
Monday, May 2, 2011 3:30PM - 4:06PM |
T3.00001: Core-Collapse Supernovae -- the Outliers Invited Speaker: After a brief review of current efforts to model the explosion mechanism for ``ordinary,'' core collapse supernovae and the neutrino signal expected from them, some of the outliers predicted by current theory will be discussed. Chief among these are the pulsational-pair instability supernovae, which can occur for stars as light as 80 solar masses or as heavy as 140 solar masses, or more. These explosions, which would have been common in the early universe and persist today, can make supernovae that do or do not recur, and that can be either exceptionally faint or bright or both. They leave behind black holes with masses near 40 solar masses, and produce an abundance pattern that is rich in CNO, much like that seen in the ultra-iron poor stars. Other models for unusual supernovae, including magnetar-powered supernovae and 8 - 10 solar mass supernovae will be mentioned as time allows. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, May 2, 2011 4:06PM - 4:42PM |
T3.00002: Weird Supernovae and Implications for their Progenitor Stars Invited Speaker: In the last decade, systematic surveys of nearby galaxies have discovered thousands of supernovae. A small percentage of these events are extremely peculiar and do not fall into previous categories. These objects have explosions and/or progenitor systems that are significantly different from the majority of supernovae, showing that there are many ways that stars can die. I will discuss some extreme examples, focusing on a relatively large class of peculiar low-luminosity supernovae. The observational properties of this class are difficult to reconcile with current supernova models. With new and upcoming surveys, we will observe hundreds of objects similar to what are currently unique, singular events and will likely discover even rarer types of supernovae. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, May 2, 2011 4:42PM - 5:18PM |
T3.00003: New Classes of Super-Luminous Supernovae Invited Speaker: Wide field optical imaging surveys are uncovering new classes of never before seen (or at least previously over-looked) stellar explosions. Of particular interest are a group of outbursts dwarfing the most powerful supernovae observed in the past century. With peak luminosities in excess of $10^{44}$\,erg\,s$^{-1}$ and total radiative outputs greater than $10^{51}$\,erg, these events push the limits of conventional supernova explosion theory. It is possible that some of these super-luminous supernovae are triggered by the electron-positron pair instability, and they may thus represent local analogs of the first stellar explosions to shape the universe. In this talk, I will highlight some of the key discoveries in this emerging class, preliminary event rates, host galaxy constraints, and the prospects for future studies. [Preview Abstract] |
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