Description:

"Predicting the progenitor of Type IIb SN 2016gkg"
Niharika Sravan

The progenitors of stripped envelope (SE) supernovae (SNe) and associated evolutionary pathways are an open question. Wind mass loss and binary interactions are the leading candidates to explain observations. The sub-class, Type IIb SNe, are of special interest in answering the progenitor question because they have six identified progenitors to date. In this work, we apply Bayesian methods to the largest database of explicitly modeled single and binary star sequences to date to derive the distribution of progenitors of the newest Type IIb with a detected progenitor, SN 2016gkg. We derive constraints for the luminosity and effective temperature/colors of the binary companion to the progenitor star. These may be recovered when the SN ejecta clears and can serve as a test our models and yield stronger constraints on the progenitor of SN 2016gkg.

"Do muons spontaneously convert to electrons?"
Prof. Michael Schmitt

We do not expect muons to spontaneously convert to electrons because we assume lepton number is conserved. But neutrino oscillations patently violate lepton number conservation, so maybe our expectation needs testing. I will discuss how we can look for muons converting to electrons, why we should do so, and when it will happen.