Prompt Discovery and Investigation of Nearby Supernovae

这一奖项将支持一项探测和表征超新星的项目的继续，超新星是某些类型恒星演化的最后一个爆炸性阶段。该项目的主要目标是提高对不同类型超新星的前驱恒星、爆炸机制、核合成产物和宇宙学用途的了解。这项工作将包括三个部分：(A)继续机器人搜索超新星，扩展最近实施的在爆炸后不久发现超新星的技术；(B)获取、减少、分析和解释广泛的新数据(光度和光谱学，特别侧重于提高超新星的实用性；(C)分析关于超新星前爆发和剥离包层核心坍塌超新星的性质的新数据和现有数据；以及(D)分析关于超新星的新的和现有的偏振数据。该奖项将有助于本科生和研究生的培训，并将支持向公众宣传这一项目(以及整个超新星)的结果。预计这些结果还将对星系的化学演化、脉冲星的诞生速度、黑洞的质量、伽马射线爆发的性质以及宇宙的膨胀等不同的主题产生广泛的影响。

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.