CAREER: Radio and gravitational-wave emission from the largest explosions since the Big Bang

职业：大爆炸以来最大爆炸的无线电和引力波发射

• 批准号: 1455090
• 负责人: Alessandra Corsi
• 金额: $ 72万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1455090&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Radio; gravitational; wave; emission

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic phenomena in the universe and are rarely observed in distant galaxies. They are thought to be created when a supernova explosion occurs, or binary neutron stars merge, and a narrow beam of material is ejected at highly relativistic speeds. This award funds a program to address several open questions associated with GRBs: namely their connection to supernovae, their connection to compact binary mergers and the composition of their relativistic ejecta as it shocks the surrounding material. This project will focus on studying the only type of supernovae known to be associated with GRBs, which are called type BL Ic. The PI and her team will combine observations of these objects at the Palomar Transient Factory with follow-up radio emission measurements done at the Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to search for GRB signatures. Using new capabilities of the VLA brought about by the recent upgrade. They also plan to conduct gravitational wave measurements with Advanced LIGO. This work also includes a large educational component, which will provide radio images of the sky and in-class activities to high school teachers and college students. The PI will also conduct annual seminars to teachers of local high schools in order to help spread scientific literacy and promote excitement about astronomy. Much of this communication will be carried out by high school students in the Texas Tech U Clark Scholars program, who will create flyers for public distribution. The PI will also train and mentor graduate and undergraduate students and a postdoctoral scholar in research. The observations will be carried out at early-time (10-30 days of detection) and late-time (100-1000 days) in order to search for observational signatures of mildly relativistic ejecta and off-axis afterglow from a GRB jet, respectively. The VLA data will be coupled with optical observations from the Palomar 60-inch telescope to provide a broad-band dataset for model testing. The PI will also will use Swift/UVOT and other optical data published in GCNs to test whether radio emission is accompanied by a reverse shock optical flare, or else dominated by the forward shock. The Palomar observations will also be used to search for the optical counterpart of the GRB. The team will also search for the first off-axis GRB, which is predicted by the GRB jet model, but so far not detected. Also, this work will be contribute to our understanding of very massive stars (those with more than 20 times the mass of the Sun), which play a key role in understanding ionization and metallicity studies of the early Universe, when many of these stars may have seeded the early Universe with black holes.

伽马射线暴（GRB）是宇宙中能量最高的现象，在遥远的星系中很少观察到。 它们被认为是在超新星爆炸发生或双中子星合并时产生的，并且狭窄的物质束以高相对论速度喷射出来。该奖项资助了一个项目，以解决与伽玛暴相关的几个悬而未决的问题：即它们与超新星的联系、它们与紧凑双星合并的联系以及它们冲击周围物质时相对论性喷射物的成分。 该项目将重点研究唯一一种已知与伽玛暴相关的超新星，称为 BL Ic 型。 PI 和她的团队将把帕洛玛瞬态工厂对这些天体的观测与扬斯基甚大阵列 (VLA) 进行的后续无线电发射测量结合起来，以寻找伽马暴特征。 使用最近升级带来的 VLA 新功能。 他们还计划利用先进的 LIGO 进行引力波测量。 这项工作还包括一个大型的教育部分，将为高中教师和大学生提供天空的无线电图像和课堂活动。 PI还将为当地高中的教师举办年度研讨会，以帮助传播科学素养并激发人们对天文学的兴趣。 大部分交流将由德克萨斯理工大学克拉克学者计划的高中生进行，他们将制作传单供公众分发。 PI 还将培训和指导研究生和本科生以及博士后学者进行研究。观测将在早期（检测后 10-30 天）和后期（100-1000 天）进行，以便分别寻找来自 GRB 喷流的轻度相对论性喷射物和离轴余辉的观测特征。 VLA 数据将与 Palomar 60 英寸望远镜的光学观测相结合，为模型测试提供宽带数据集。 PI 还将使用 Swift/UVOT 和 GCN 中发布的其他光学数据来测试无线电发射是否伴随着反向激波光学耀斑，或者是否以前向激波为主。 帕洛玛观测也将用于寻找伽玛射线暴的光学对应物。 该团队还将寻找第一个离轴GRB，这是GRB喷流模型预测的，但迄今为止尚未发现。 此外，这项工作将有助于我们了解非常大质量的恒星（质量超过太阳 20 倍的恒星），这些恒星在理解早期宇宙的电离和金属丰度研究中发挥着关键作用，当时许多这样的恒星可能为早期宇宙播下了黑洞的种子。