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SUMMARY:Novae and Supernovae: Intimate Connections - Michael Shara (Americ
 an Museum of Natural History in New York/IoA\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20170316T160000Z
DTEND:20170316T170000Z
UID:TALK70200@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Simon Hodgkin
DESCRIPTION:Classical novae and supernovae were long thought to be complet
 ely separate\nastrophysical phenomena.\nThis is no longer true\; most type
  Ia supernovae (SNIa)\, the "standardizable\ncandles" that led to the disc
 overy of the dark energy\,\nare now understood to have had symbiotic nova 
 progenitors. Symbiotic novae\nconsist of a red giant and a rapidly accreti
 ng\, frequently erupting white\ndwarf. \nSome of the offspring of these bi
 naries are close double white dwarfs\, which\nare equally viable SNIa prog
 enitors. Understanding the evolution of these\nbinaries over a Hubble time
  is essential to a robust calibration of the\ncrucial standard candles tha
 t they produce.\n\nI'll review the current state of knowledge of the short
  and long-term\ntemporal evolution of the white dwarfs in novae\, and pred
 ictions about how\nthese can lead to SNIa. A test of a key prediction of t
 he theory is\nunderway. In 2017 the Hubble Space Telescope is imaging the 
 giant elliptical\ngalaxy M87 53 times - every 5 days over 9 months - in a 
 search for recurring\n"ultraviolet flashers" in M87. These are the symbiot
 ic novae predicted to\nproduce SNIa. I'll present early results from this 
 program\, which should\nfinally quantify the fractions of  SNIa progenitor
 s containing one and two\nwhite dwarfs at redshift zero. This will be a st
 rong constraint on all\nevolutionary models of the binaries which produce 
 SNIa.
LOCATION:Sackler Lecture Theatre\, IoA (tea at 3:30 pm)
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