IAS/PU Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The advent of wide-field synoptic imaging has re-invigorated the venerable field of time domain astronomy. Our framework of optical transients no longer has a wide six-magnitude luminosity "gap" between the brightest novae and faintest supernovae...

A classic problem posed by long gamma ray bursts (GRB) is that the energy output requires gravitational energy release so deep within the host star that the prompt gamma rays should, upon naive consideration, have been obscured. It is suggested that...