NSF Award
2408655
Massive stars die spectacularly as Supernovae (SN). The investigators seek to understand the processes in massive stars during their final years before exploding. The investigators will use two sets of optical telescopes in New Mexico and Crete, Greece known as the Total-Coverage Ultra-Fast Response to Binary-Mergers Observatory (TURBO) to image a small set of nearby galaxies. By taking images every several minutes, they will be able to detect the first brief pulse of light emerging from supernovae in those galaxies. These observations will probe the exploding stars’ internal structure and recent mass loss. A second objective of the program is to study the mergers of pairs of neutron stars. Such mergers emit ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves. Following an alert from a gravitational-wave observatory, TURBO will begin searching for light emitted by the merger. TURBO’s uniquely fast response of two seconds will allow it to find rapidly fading sources. Successful detections will provide insight into whether such mergers are primarily responsible for Earth’s heavy elements. The program will involve students from UMN-Morris, which serves a significant Native American student body, as well as New Mexico Tech, an Hispanic-serving institution. The project will develop the ability to stream TURBO imaging to classrooms and will use Zooniverse to involve the public. <br/><br/>Observations of the initial pulse, or breakout of the internal shock at the surface of the SN progenitor, (4–6 each year) can be expected to connect the properties of progenitors to those of the SNe, as well as provide new insight into the structure of massive stars just before the explosion. Furthermore, the investigators expect to identify the shock breakout of the massive progenitor of a “failed SN” in a nearby galaxy. A global and growing network of gravitational-wave detectors has now observed a total of more than one-hundred mergers of compact objects. TURBO will be used to rapidly image hundreds of square degrees for counter parts of gravitational-wave events. TURBO has a unique ability to leverage LIGO’s new early warning alerts and observe mergers as they happen across large areas on the sky. It will provide targets to global follow-up facilities. With an optical counterpart, mergers will enable a measurement of the Hubble constant, addressing the current tension, in addition to the r-process yields of kilonovae.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
