Seminar: Early Warning Signs: Dramatic variability seen in Massive stars shortly before their explosive Supernova

Massive stars typically end their lives with a bright supernova explosion. However, the final moments of the progenitor stars remain somewhat elusive, and have rarely been observed in great detail. Over the last two decades, there have been instances where we have observed erratic activity just before a massive star goes supernova.

Thanks in part to all-sky photometric surveys, we are now detecting more instances of precursor activity in supernovae progenitors.

One challenge when observing these precursor events is the uncertainty surrounding when/if the actual supernova explosion will occur. This uncertainty means we are often hesitant to allocate valuable telescope time.

In this talk I will present a growing sample of objects that show that (some) Massive stars display some sort of variability weeks-months before their final supernova. Using this work, we may be able to have advance warning of an impending supernova, allowing for high reward observations, and in some form, the ability to predict the final death of a Massive star.
 

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We shall leave for lunch at around 12:15. There will be fika after the seminar.