In this talk I will discuss open questions in our quest to understand the stellar systems that punctuate the end of their lives via supernova explosions. Solving the puzzle to connect stellar systems to their final fate has important ramifications for understanding the chemical enrichment of the Universe and galaxy evolution and feedback, and these explosions will be discovered in the millions by the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). I will highlight Type Ia supernovae and discuss recent discoveries and an exquisite set of observations obtained by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). My group recently identified a new subclass of peculiar Type Ia supernovae that provides strong evidence that white dwarfs below the Chandrasekhar mass can explode as thermonuclear supernovae. As part of this work, my group built an artificial intelligence (AI) framework, BTSbot, to find supernovae, and we made the first-ever, AI-enabled observation, identification, spectroscopic classification, and discovery of a new supernova, which was automatically announced to the astronomical community. To close I will discuss my work as the Director of the La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4), a new experiment that has been designed to complement some of the shortcomings of LSST – in particular, LS4 will capture the bright and fast transients, which currently sit in "blind spots" of the LSST observing strategy.
Adam Miller, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
Joan West
(847) 491-3645
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