Astronomy & Astrophysics Seminar: Explosive Transients – GW170817 and Oblique Shocks

Abstract:

The night sky is embellished by an abundance of cosmic explosions. I will present two recent projects related to the early time evolution of explosive transients. First, I will discuss a new limit on the expansion velocity of the synchrotron emitting region that followed the event GW170817, at a few days post-merger. This remarkable event was the first detection of a binary neutron star merger via gravitational waves. Our results rule out some of the models proposed for explaining the observed light curves. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss the effects of asphericity on the breakout of a shock from a stellar surface. In particular, I will focus on the hydrodynamics of an oblique shock emergence from the surface of a medium, and present some applications to our theory.

Seminar Organizer: Dr. Omer Bromberg