Prompt Discovery and Investigation of Nearby Supernovae

该奖项将支持继续开展一个项目，以探测和表征超新星，这是某些类型恒星演化的最后爆炸阶段。 该项目的主要目标是提高对不同类型超新星的祖星、爆炸机制、核合成产物和宇宙学效用的理解。 这项工作将包括三个部分：（a）继续用机器人搜寻超新星，扩大最近实施的在爆炸后不久发现超新星的技术;（B）获取、还原、分析和解释大量新数据（光度学和光谱学，特别强调提高超新星的效用;（c）分析有关超新星爆发前的新数据和现有数据以及剥离包层核心坍缩超新星的性质;以及（d）该奖项将有助于培养本科生和研究生，将支持向公众传播该项目（以及一般超新星）的结果。 这些结果还有望对各种各样的主题产生广泛的影响，如星系的化学演化，恒星的出生率，黑洞的质量，伽马射线爆发的性质以及宇宙的膨胀。

This award will support the continuation of a project to detect and characterize supernovae, the final, explosive stage in the evolution of certain types of stars. The principal goal of the project is to improve the understanding of the progenitor stars, explosion mechanisms, nucleosynthetic products, and cosmological utility of different types of supernovae. This work will have three parts: (a) the continuation robotic searches for supernovae, extending a recently implemented technique of discovering supernovae very shortly after the explosion; (b) the acquisition, reduction, analysis, and interpretation of extensive new data (photometry and spectroscopy, with particular emphasis on improving the utility of supernovae; (c) the analysis of new and existing data concerning pre-supernovae outbursts and the nature of stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae; and (d) the analysis of new and existing polarimetry data on supernovae.The award will contribute to the training of undergraduate and graduate students and will support communication of the results of this project (and of supernovae in general) to the general public. The results are also expected to have broad implications for topics as diverse as the chemical evolution of galaxies, the birth rate of pulsars, the masses of black holes, the nature of gamma-ray bursts, and the expansion of the Universe.