Related papers: Modeling the Evolution from Massive Stars to Super…
Core collapse supernovae (SN) are the final stages of stellar evolution in massive stars during which the central region collapses, forms a neutron star (NS), and the outer layers are ejected. Recent explosion scenarios assumed that the…
Detailed observations of a growing number of supernovae have determined a bloom of new peculiar events. In this paper we take a short tour through the SN diversity and discuss some important, physical issues related to it. Because of the…
Interacting supernovae provide key insights into the mass-loss processes of massive stars and their circumstellar environments. By analyzing their photometric and spectroscopic properties, we can study the complex interactions between…
Stripped-envelope supernovae (SNe) are H-poor transients produced at the end of the life of massive stars that previously lost their H-rich envelope. Their progenitors are thought to be donor stars in mass-transferring binary systems, which…
(Abridged) Core-collapse supernova remnants (SNRs) display complex morphologies and asymmetries, reflecting anisotropies from the explosion and early interactions with the circumstellar medium (CSM). Spectral analysis of these remnants can…
Supernovae (SNe) are generally classified into Type I and Type II. Most SNe (~ 80%), including all the subtypes of Type II, and Type Ib/c, arise from the core-collapse of massive stars. During their lifetime, mass-loss from these stars…
The explosion of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) is an extremely challenging problem, and there are still large uncertainties regarding which stars lead to successful explosions that leave behind a neutron star, and which ones will form a…
Supernovae release an enormous amount of energy into the interstellar medium. Their remnants can observationally be traced up to several ten-thousand years. So far more than 230 Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) have been identified in the…
Thermonuclear and core-collapse supernova remnants (SNRs) are the nebular leftovers of defunct stars. Their morphology and emission properties provide insights into the evolutionary history of the progenitor star. But while some SNRs are…
Theory holds that a star born with an initial mass between about 8 and 140 times the mass of the Sun will end its life through the catastrophic gravitational collapse of its iron core to a neutron star or black hole. This core collapse…
There is mounting observational evidence that most galactic nuclei host both supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and young populations of stars. With an abundance of massive stars, core-collapse supernovae are expected in SMBH spheres of…
A small fraction of core collapse supernovae (SNe) show evidence that the outgoing blast wave has encountered a substantial mass ~ 1-10 M_sun of circumstellar matter (CSM) at radii ~100-1000 AU, much more than can nominally be explained by…
Massive stars are essential to understand a variety of branches of astronomy including galaxy and star cluster evolution, nucleosynthesis and supernovae, pulsars and black holes. It has become evident that massive star evolution is very…
The majority of core-collapse supernova (CCSN) progenitors are massive stars in multiple systems, and their evolution and final fate are affected by interactions with their companions. These interactions can explain the presence of…
The late-stage evolution of massive stars is marked by intense instability as they approach core-collapse. During these phases, giant stellar eruptions lead to exceptionally high mass-loss rates, forming significant amounts of dust.…
I summarize what we have learned about the nature of stars that ultimately explode as core-collapse supernovae from the examination of images taken prior to the explosion. By registering pre-supernova and post-supernova images, usually…
I briefly describe the Lick Observatory Supernova Search with the 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope. I then present an overview of optical observations of Type II, IIb, Ib, and Ic supernovae (SNe), all of which are thought to arise…
Most supernova remnants (SNRs) are old, in the sense that their structure has been profoundly modified by their interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). Old SNRs are very heterogenous in terms of their appearance,…
A supernova (SN) explosion drives stellar debris into the circumstellar material (CSM) filling a region on a scale of parsecs with X-ray emitting plasma. The velocities involved in supernova remnants (SNRs), thousands of km/s, can be…
The explosion of ultra-stripped stars in close binaries can lead to ejecta masses < 0.1 M_sun and may explain some of the recent discoveries of weak and fast optical transients. In Tauris et al. (2013), it was demonstrated that helium star…