Project description
Studying the demise of stars
Transient astronomical events such as supernovas, tidal disruption events and kilonovae hold many secrets of the universe. Studying them could explain how massive stars evolve and die, what the population of supermassive black holes is, how the heavy elements are formed, and more. Although significant efforts have been made to discover more of these rare events, it is very challenging to identify those that are of value, and to perform prioritised wide-scale follow-up. The EU-funded StarDestroyers project aims to develop and use innovative tools to consolidate discoveries from various transient surveys, identify the events that demand immediate follow-up, prioritise follow-up resources and conduct the follow-up, all in real time. This approach will give scientists full access to the broad underlying physics of supernovae, tidal disruption events and kilonovae, bringing us one step closer to unlocking the secrets of the Universe.
Objective
How do massive stars evolve and achieve explosion? What governs the various regimes of accretion physics? What is the population of quiescent supermassive black holes? What is the neutron star equation of state? These seemingly unrelated questions (among others) can be answered through the study of transients, mainly: supernovae (SNe), tidal disruption events (TDEs), and kilonovae (KNe). For this reason, an enormous amount of observational effort is being put into surveys to discover more of these rare events. The bottleneck is now in identifying the transients of value in ever-growing alert streams, and in performing prioritized wide-scale followup. Without these crucial steps, which cannot be done retroactively after the transient surveys are concluded, we will not gain full access to the broad underlying physics, regardless of the quantity of events discovered.
Here I propose to develop and use novel tools to consolidate discoveries from various transient surveys, identify the events that demand immediate followup, prioritize followup resources, and conduct the followup, all in real time.
My experience with prominent transient surveys and followup facilities allowed me to obtain some of the most comprehensive observations of young SNe, identify the first class of optical TDEs and their unique host-galaxy preference, and lead the discovery team that secured the densest early data of the first KN following a gravitational-wave trigger. I now have access to a unique combination of observing resources that will allow me to transform these discoveries from the few events level to statistical samples.
The public ZTF survey is already producing 100,000 alerts per night. LSST is around the corner, and is expected to produce 10 million alerts per night. Now is the time to invest in identification, classification, and followup of the potential treasure chest of events provided by transient surveys in order to unlock the broad range of physical insights we gain from them.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
69978 Tel Aviv
Israel