I'm a bit late with this post, as this supernova has been in the news a bit over the past week. In this new paper in Nature Astronomy, my colleagues and I presented a supernova that released so much energy that it seemingly had to have come from one of the most massive stars in … Continue reading An incredibly bright and massive supernova!
Author: mattnicholl56
A tidal disruption event changes its spots
Recently I've been really interested in tidal disruption events (TDEs). These are hot, bright flares generated in the centres of galaxies as an unlucky star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole and gets shredded! Along with my collaborators, I just published this paper studying one particular TDE in detail, and trying to understand … Continue reading A tidal disruption event changes its spots
Old supernovae, new insights!
It's been a long time since my last post (changing jobs/continents is time-consuming!) but I have two almost-new papers I've been meaning to share: one recently published in ApJ letters, and the other just accepted in ApJ. The two are linked by the theme of very late-time observations of superluminous supernovae. The first paper focuses … Continue reading Old supernovae, new insights!
Gravitational waves and visible light from a neutron star collision: an incredible day for science
Wow. After two months of excitement and feverish work, we finally revealed yesterday what many in the astronomical community had been speculating about: the simultaneous discovery of gravitational and electromagnetic radiation (light) from the same source. But what maybe no one expected was just how much light. This event, the violent collision of two neutron … Continue reading Gravitational waves and visible light from a neutron star collision: an incredible day for science
A full literature study of superluminous supernovae with our new code, MOSFiT!
Alternative title: Markov Chain Monte Carlo Multi-Colour Magnetar Calculations with the MOSFiT Code (MCMCMCMCMC). Earlier this summer (it's been so busy!) we published the first results from our new multi-purpose light curve code. The Modular Open Source Fitter for Transients (MOSFiT) was written by James Guillochon and myself (with help from many others) so that … Continue reading A full literature study of superluminous supernovae with our new code, MOSFiT!
