Overview

This thesis reports the discovery of relativistic stellar explosions outside of the gamma ray band, using optical time domain surveys. It is well known that some massive stars end their lives with the formation of a compact object (a neutron star or black hole) that launches a relativistic jet detectable from earth as a burst of gamma rays. It has long been suspected, however, that gamma ray bursts are only the tip of the iceberg in a broad landscape of relativistic explosions, and so the results presented in this thesis represent a major breakthrough. Highlights of this thesis include: characterization of the first major new class of relativistic explosions in a decade; the discovery of abrupt end-of-life mass-loss in a surprisingly diverse range of stars; and the routine discovery of afterglow emission and several events that may represent baryonically dirty jets or jets viewed slightly off axis. These discoveries necessitated the solution of difficult technical challenges such as the identification of rare and fleeting “needles” in a vast haystack of time-varying phenomena in the night sky, and responding to discoveries within hours to obtain data across the electromagnetic spectrum from X-rays to radio wavelengths. 

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna Y. Q. Ho
Publisher:   Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint:   Springer International Publishing AG
Edition:   1st ed. 2022
Weight:   0.664kg
ISBN:  

9783031153662

ISBN 10:   3031153669
Pages:   307
Publication Date:   08 November 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTSAcknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vAbstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viiiPublished Content and Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixTable of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xList of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiiList of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxivChapter I: Introduction and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1 Landscape Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.2 Summary of Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Chapter II: ZTF20aajnksq (AT 2020blt): A Fast Optical Transient at I 2•9With No Detected Gamma-Ray Burst Counterpart . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142.2 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.3 Comparison to GRB Afterglows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222.4 Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302.5 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Chapter III: iPTF Archival Search for Fast Optical Transients . . . . . . . . . 353.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363.2 Data and Candidate Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383.3 Properties of the iPTF M-dwarf Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403.4 Rate of Relativistic Fast Optical Transients in iPTF . . . . . . . . . . 453.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463.6 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Chapter IV: SN 2020bvc: a Broad-lined Type Ic Supernova with a DoublepeakedOptical Light Curve and a Luminous X-ray and Radio Counterpart 524.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534.2 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554.3 Light Curve Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674.4 Spectroscopic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694.5 Modeling the Light Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744.6 Modeling the Fast Ejecta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774.7 Early ZTF Light Curves of Nearby Ic-BL SNe . . . . . . . . . . . . 834.8 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 854.9 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Chapter V: The Broad-lined Ic Supernova ZTF18aaqjovh (SN 2018bvw): AnOptically Discovered Engine-driven Supernova Candidate with LuminousRadio Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035.2 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105xi5.3 Analysis and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1195.4 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Chapter VI: Evidence for Late-stage Eruptive Mass Loss in the Progenitor toSN 2018gep, a Broad-lined Ic Supernova: Pre-explosion Emission and aRapidly Rising Luminous Transient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1286.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1306.2 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316.3 Basic Properties of the Explosion and its Host Galaxy . . . . . . . . 1466.4 Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1586.5 Comparison to Unclassified Rapidly Evolving Transients at HighRedshift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1706.6 Summary and Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1716.7 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175Chapter VII: AT2018cow: A Luminous Millimeter Transient . . . . . . . . . 1957.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1967.2 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1987.3 Basic Properties of the Shock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2067.4 Implications of Shock Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2187.5 Origin of the X-ray Emission and Emergence of a Compact Source . 2267.6 Conclusions and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2307.7 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232Chapter VIII: TheKoala: AFast Blue Optical Transient with Luminous RadioEmission from a Starburst Dwarf Galaxy at I = 0•27 . . . . . . . . . . . 2388.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2398.2 Discovery and Basic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2438.3 Comparison With Extragalactic Explosions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2528.4 Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2588.5 Rate Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2668.6 Prospects for Detecting X-ray Emission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2698.7 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2698.8 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272Chapter IX: Other Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2769.1 ZTF19abvizsw: ACosmological AfterglowWithNo Detected GammarayBurst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2769.2 How Much CSM is Sufficient to Choke a Jet? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2769.3 Radio Observations of Ic-BL SNe Discovered by ZTF . . . . . . . . 277Chapter X: The Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

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Anna Y. Q. Ho is an assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell University. 

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