All theoretical and observational topics relevant to the understanding of the thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernova phenomenon are thoroughly and consistently reviewed by a panel including the foremost experts in the field. The book covers all aspects, ranging from the observations of SNe Ia at all stages and all wavelengths to the 2D and 3D modelling of thermonuclear flames in very dense plasmas. Scenarios for close binary evolution leading to SNe Ia are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on the homogeneity vs. diversity of SNe Ia and on their use as standard candles to measure cosmological parameters. The book reflects the recent and very significant progress made in both the modelling of the explosions and in the observational field.

The organization of this Symposium had its beginnings at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Grenoble in 1976. The initial "rounding up" of the Scienti fic Organizing Committee was begun by Drs. Snow and Swings; most of us who became the eventual organizing committee met a few times during the Assembly and formulated the essential outlines of the meeting. Extensive correspondence with all the committee subsequently established the program. The idea was to bring together both observers and theoreticians to discuss the stellar winds and mass loss rates and their effects on evolutions of O-type stars. On the observational side, there are now spectroscopic data from the far UV to the near IR regions concerning the stellar winds. There is also information about the free-free emission in the wind from the IR and radio portions of the spectrum. Fortunately, these different detection methods give more or less the same mass loss rate for the one star, s Pup" which has been observed at all wavelengths. One of the intents of the first three sessions of this Symposium is to outline the eXisting data on mass loss rates as it per tains to the O-type stars.

Targeting advanced students of astronomy and physics, as well as astronomers and physicists contemplating research on supernovae or related fields, David Branch and J. Craig Wheeler offer a modern account of the nature, causes and consequences of supernovae, as well as of issues that remain to be resolved. Owing especially to (1) the appearance of supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, (2) the spectacularly successful use of supernovae as distance indicators for cosmology, (3) the association of some supernovae with the enigmatic cosmic gamma-ray bursts, and (4) the discovery of a class of superluminous supernovae, the pace of supernova research has been increasing sharply. This monograph serves as a broad survey of modern supernova research and a guide to the current literature. The book’s emphasis is on the explosive phases of supernovae. Part 1 is devoted to a survey of the kinds of observations that inform us about supernovae, some basic interpretations of such data, and an overview of the evolution of stars that brings them to an explosive endpoint. Part 2 goes into more detail on core-collapse and superluminous events: which kinds of stars produce them, and how do they do it? Part 3 is concerned with the stellar progenitors and explosion mechanisms of thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae. Part 4 is about consequences of supernovae and some applications to astrophysics and cosmology. References are provided in sufficient number to help the reader enter the literature.

A unique and wide-ranging review of one of the most dramatic research results in astronomy in recent decades.

Written by a leading expert, this monograph presents recent developments on supernova remnants, with the inclusion of results from various satellites and ground-based instruments. The book details the physics and evolution of supernova remnants, as well as provides an up-to-date account of recent multiwavelength results. Supernova remnants provide vital clues about the actual supernova explosions from X-ray spectroscopy of the supernova material, or from the imprints the progenitors had on the ambient medium supernova remnants are interacting with - all of which the author discusses in great detail. The way in which supernova remnants are classified, is reviewed and explained early on. A chapter is devoted to the related topic of pulsar wind nebulae, and neutron stars associated with supernova remnants. The book also includes an extended part on radiative processes, collisionless shock physics and cosmic-ray acceleration, making this book applicable to a wide variety of astronomical sub-disciplines. With its coverage of fundamental physics and careful review of the state of the field, the book serves as both textbook for advanced students and as reference for researchers in the field.

The remarkable uniformity of Type Ia supernovae has allowed astronomers to use them as distance indicators to measure the properties and expansion history of the Universe. However, Type Ia supernovae exhibit intrinsic variation in both their spectra and observed brightness. The brightness variations have been approximately corrected by various methods, but there remain intrinsic variations that limit the statistical power of current and future observations of distant supernovae for cosmological purposes. There may be systematic effects in this residual variation that evolve with redshift and thus limit the cosmological power of SN Ia luminosity-distance experiments. To reduce these systematic uncertainties, we need a deeper understanding of the observed variations in Type Ia supernovae. Toward this end, the Nearby Supernova Factory has been designed to discover hundreds of Type Ia supernovae in a systematic and automated fashion and study them in detail. This project will observe these supernovae spectrophotometrically to provide the homogeneous high-quality data set necessary to improve the understanding and calibration of these vital cosmological yardsticks. From 1998 to 2003, in collaboration with the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a systematic and automated searching program was conceived and executed using the computing facilities at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Supercomputing Center. An automated search had never been attempted on this scale. A number of planned future large supernovae projects are predicated on the ability to find supernovae quickly, reliably, and efficiently in large datasets. A prototype run of the SNfactory search pipeline conducted from 2002 to 2003 discovered 83 SNe at a final rate of 12 SNe/month. A large, homogeneous search of this scale offers an excellent opportunity to measure the rate of Type Ia supernovae. This thesis presents a new method for analyzing the true sensitivity of a multi-epoch supernova search and finds a Type Ia supernova rate from z (almost equal to) 0.01-0.1 of r{sub V} = 4.26{sub -1.93 -0.10}{sup +1.39 +0.10} h3 x 10−4 SNe Ia/yr/Mpc3 from a preliminary analysis of a subsample of the SNfactory prototype search. Several unusual supernovae were found in the course of the SNfactory prototype search. One in particular, SN 2002ic, was the first SN Ia to exhibit convincing evidence for a circumstellar medium and offers valuable insight into the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae.