Colloquium Abstract - Aydi - 2025Apr11

April 11, 2025

11:00am Mountain

Elias Aydi (Texas Tech University)

 

New insights into novae

 

Abstract

Novae are panchromatic transients triggered by a thermonuclear runaway on the surfaces of white dwarf stars in interacting binaries. Our understanding of how novae are powered has been altered with the Fermi gamma-ray telescope establishing novae as bright GeV gamma-ray sources and thus a new class of particle accelerators in our Galaxy. This unexpected discovery underscores the complexity of novae and their value as laboratories for studying shocks and particle acceleration. In this talk I will highlight our ongoing multi-wavelength/multi-messenger efforts aimed at understanding how shocks work in novae. These efforts can help us probe critical but poorly understood physical processes, such as common envelope interaction, super-Eddington luminosities, particle acceleration efficiency, and dust formation around explosive transients, and are essential for a better understanding of other shock-powered transients such as supernovae, stellar mergers, and tidal disruption events.

 

Local Host: Justin Linford

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