This award will fund a combined theoretical and observational study to address the origins of Type Ia supernovae. Dr. Di Stefano and her collaborators will create extensive population synthesis simulations that employ observations to compute the appearance of supernovae at two stages of evolution: during an epoch when a white dwarf gains mass and during a possible second epoch, when the white dwarf may need to spin down before it can explode. This group will compute the expected signatures in, and mine existing large data sets for, supernova progenitors in recent large surveys to identify the locations some of the thousands of progenitors that inhabit the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds.
In recent years, astronomers have proposed that these stellar explosions may have come from a variety of situations involving compact stellar remnants such as white dwarfs. Understanding the origins of supernovae is viewed as a key issue in improving studies of the history of the expansion of the universe. Dr. Di Stefano will also continue her efforts in public education and outreach, and will include students at many different levels (high school through graduate school) in this project.
