Past Events

Abstract

Supernova remnants (SNRs), gorgeous nebula-like objects left behind by stellar explosions in our Universe, have never ceased to fascinate us by their many faces. Their important roles in shaping our Milky Way and other galaxies as we know them today include the ejection of chemical elements essential to life, the production of cosmic-ray particles, and the triggering of star formation and turbulence in the interstellar medium, to name just a few. Their rich variety of behaviors and morphologies seen in the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and the complex network of underlying physical processes, have enticed astrophysicists to devote decades trying to unravel them piece by piece. Thanks to the application of quickly evolving numerical techniques blended with accumulating observational data from newer and better telescopes, we have witnessed substantial advances in our understanding of these intriguing celestial objects in recent years. Nevertheless, plenty of mysteries still remain to keep our hands busy.

In this seminar, I will introduce how I and my team have been using state-of-the-art numerical methods to study the different aspects of SNRs. In particular, I will demonstrate how our results can be used to confront current and future observational data, such as the high-resolution spectroscopy by the next-generation X-ray space telescope ASTRO-H to be launched in a couple of months. On top of that, we can probe into the puzzling nature of supernova explosions and their progenitor stars through studying SNRs thanks to their long lifetimes and considerable sizes on the sky in comparison to point-like and transient supernova events. I will present a long-term effort that we have initiated recently on linking current supernova simulations with SNR models to understand the last stages of evolution for massive stars.

Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the seminar.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.