Title: Probing Late-Stage Stellar Evolution Through Supernovae And Their Precursors

Speaker: 董一泽

Institute: 哈佛-史密松森天体物理中心

Host: 芦李源

Time: 2025.12.19 周五 14:00 - 15:30

Location: 睿智楼三楼会议室

Abstract: Massive stars play a central role in shaping galaxy evolution through their mass loss and explosive deaths, enriching the cosmos with heavy elements and producing compact stellar remnants. Recent observations of supernovae reveal that many massive stars undergo enhanced mass-loss episodes in their final years, driven by mechanisms not predicted by current stellar evolution theory. In some cases, supernovae exhibit precursor emission, offering rare insight into the immediate pre-explosion activity of their progenitors. In this talk, I will present an overview of precursor and post-explosion studies of both hydrogen-rich and helium-rich supernovae, highlighting what they reveal about the late-stage evolution of their massive star progenitors. With the upcoming Rubin Observatory, supernova precursors will be detectable in real time, enabling coordinated spectroscopic follow-up during this pre-explosion phase, which will provide crucial constraints on the physical processes governing the final stages of massive star evolution and their connection to the resulting explosions.

Bio: Dr. Yize Dong is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. His research focuses on the deaths of massive stars, using observations of supernovae and their pre-explosion activity to constrain the final stages of massive star evolution.