Related papers: Olivier Chesneau's work on novae
Novae and supernovae are rare astronomical events that would have had an influence on the sky-watching peoples who witnessed them. Although several bright novae/supernovae have been visible during recorded human history, there are many…
There is now solid experimental evidence of at least one supernova explosion within 100 pc of Earth within the last few million years, from measurements of the short-lived isotope 60Fe in widespread deep-ocean samples, as well as in the…
Classical novae are the product of thermonuclear runaway-initiated explosions occurring on accreting white dwarfs. V339 Del (Nova Delphinus 2013) was one of the brightest classical novae of the last hundred years. Spectroscopy and…
The discovery of cosmic radio emission by Karl Jansky in the course of searching for the source of interference to telephone communications and the instrumental advances which followed, have led to a series of new paradigm changing…
The properties of supernovae (SNe) are reviewed. It is shown that the observed characteristics of the morphological classes of SNe (types Ia, Ib/c, II) can be explained in terms of two basic explosion mechanisms, i.e. core collapse of…
It is widely believed that asphericity in the explosion is the crucial ingredient leading to successful core-collapse (CC) supernovae. However, direct observational evidence for the explosion geometry and for the connection with the…
Novae and supernovae play a key role in many fields of Astrophysics and Cosmology. Despite their importance, an accurate description of which objects explode and why and how they explode is still lacking. One of the main characteristics of…
Supernova explosions are one of the most energetic--and potentially lethal--phenomena in the Universe. Scientists have speculated for decades about the possible consequences for life on Earth of a nearby supernova, but plausible candidates…
The large aperture and sensitive optical and near infrared imager spectrographs will enable an ELT system to observe some supernovae at large distances, deep into cosmological history when supernovae first began to occur.
The motivations to make ultraviolet (UV) studies of supernovae (SNe) are reviewed and discussed in the light of the results obtained so far by means of IUE and HST observations. It appears that UV studies of SNe can, and do lead to…
The era of the universe's first (Population III) stars is essentially unconstrained by observation. Ultra-luminous and massive stars from this time altered the chemistry of the cosmos, provided the radiative scaffolding to support the…
The application of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as distance indicators in cosmology calls for a sound understanding of these objects. Recent years have seen a brisk development of astrophysical models which explain SNe Ia as thermonuclear…
Almost since the beginning, massive stars and their resultant supernovae have played a crucial role in the Universe. These objects produce tremendous amounts of energy and new, heavy elements that enrich galaxies, encourage new stars to…
Because calibrated light curves of Type Ia supernovae have become a major tool to determine the local expansion rate of the Universe and also its geometrical structure, considerable attention has been given to models of these events over…
Gigantic cosmological gamma-ray bursts have fallen into a dichotomy of long and short bursts, each with a very different origin. The discovery of an oddball burst calls for a rethink of that classification.
Stellar explosions such as novae and supernovae produce most of the heavy elements in the Universe. Although the onset of novae from runaway thermonuclear fusion reactions on the surface of a white dwarf in a binary star system is…
The present understanding of supernova explosion of massive stars as a two-step process, with an initial gravitational collapse toward the center of the star followed by an expansion of matter after a bouncing on the core, meets several…
Over the past decade, supernovae have emerged as some of the most powerful tools for measuring extragalactic distances. A well developed physical understanding of type II supernovae allow them to be used to measure distances independent of…
Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are generally believed to be the result of the thermonuclear disruption of Chandrasekhar-mass carbon-oxygen white dwarfs, mainly because such thermonuclear explosions can account for the right amount of nickel,…
Based on a linear and non-linear study of radial pulsations in the envelopes of classical novae (Schenker 1999), I discuss the results both from the point of view of pulsation theory as well as their consequences for current nova models.…