Supernovae Research Group

of the University of Texas Astronomy Department

Supernovae are the violent explosions of stars that are responsible for producing all of the "heavy" material (anything other than hydrogen and helium) in the Universe. For a brief time, their brightness approaches that of an entire galaxy. White dwarf stars can become supernovae if they accrete matter from a binary partner and approach the Chandrasekhar limit; this type of supernova leaves no remnant at all. Massive stars end their lives by having their cores collapse to form neutron stars or black holes, while blowing off their outer layers.

The image above is of just such an event, Supernova 1987A, which took place in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite to our own Milky Way Galaxy. This pair of images, taken at (and copyright of) the Anglo-Australian Observatory, shows the same portion of the sky before and after the supernova exploded. A larger version of this image is available from the AAO or by clicking on the image above.

The background image is courtesy of The Supernova Nexus at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The Supernovae Research Group of the University of Texas Astronomy Program is conducting research, both theoretical and observational, in order to better understand these events.

In the hopes that other astronomers might find some of our research useful in their own research and engender fruitful collaboration, we have put much of our work online for access via this page (WWW), and anonymous-ftp. We have or intend to put the following information online:

• A directory of recent preprints produced by our group, as well as a directory of older papers that have already been published.
• Data taken at McDonald Observatory and other observatories. Most of the data was collected by UT/McDonald observers; some of it was graciously donated by outside observers. (this portion under construction)
• Information about the George Wren II Supernovae Search Telescope, at McDonald Observatory.
• A compendium of reviews we have written (and those written by others, when we can get them!) that discuss the current state of research on supernovae.
• Links to other places with supernova information:
• Bibliography of radiation hydrodynamics literature compiled by
  Dmitri Mihalas (pdf file)
  

  The Supernovae Research Group is led by Prof. J. Craig Wheeler and currently includes the following personnel:

• Peter Hoeflich, Research Scientist
• Brad Schaefer, Research Scientist
• Brigitte Ragot, Research Associate
• Inma Dominguez, Universidad de Granada
• Howie Marion, Graduate Student
• Shizuka Akiyama, Graduate Student
• David Smith, Undergraduate Student
• Chris Gerardy, McDonald Obs. Postdoc

Collaborators of the Supernova research group include

• Robert Harkness, now at NCAR
• Andy Howell, now at LRL working or the Supernova Cosmology Project and SNAP Satellite
• Lifan Wang, now at LRL working or the Supernova Cosmology Project and SNAP Satellite
• Alejandro Clocchiatti, Universidad Catoluca de Chile
• Elaine Oran, now at NRL
• Alexei Khokhlov, now at NRL
• Josef Stein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Members of the UT Astronomy Department can access the Local Server News page.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about any of the information on this page, please send mail to:

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