SUPERNOVAE SN AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI AGN VARY ON TIMESCALES OF HOURS TO MONTHS AND ARE STILL SHROUDED IN MYSTERY. WE PROPOSE A LARGE K2 PROGRAM TO MONITOR 2500 BRIGHT GALAXIES IN CAMPAIGN C12 WHICH SHOULD YIELD 2 5 GREAT LIGHT CURVES LCS OF SUPERNOVAE. IN KEPLER GO PROGRAMS WE IDENTIFIED 3 SN IA OLLING ET AL 2015 2 SN IIP GARNAVICH ET AL IN PRESS TUCKER ET AL SUBMITTED AND 1 SN IIN IA CSM GARNAVICH ET AL IN PREP. WE ALSO FOUND THAT 4 OF OUR GALAXIES DISPLAY AGN ACTIVITY WITH VARIABILITY AT 0.001 LEVEL SHAYA ET AL 2015. IN K2 CAMPAIGNS C3 C5 AND C6 WE IDENTIFIED 3 3 AND 2 SNE RESPECTIVELY TWO OFWHICH WERE SPECTROSCOPICALLY CLASSIFIED. ANALYSIS OF THE K2 DATA IS ONGOING. WITH OUR PROGRAM WE PLAN TO DETERMINE THE TYPES OF COMPANIONS TO PROGENITORS OF SNE USING FEATURES IN THE EARLY BREAKOUT T 4 DAYS LCS EXPLORE THE EXPLOSION PHYSICS OF SN ESPECIALLY SN IA USING SUBTLE FEATURES DURING THEIR RISE T 20 DAYS IMPROVE THE CALIBRATIONOF SN IA AS STANDARD CANDLES FOR MEASURING DISTANCES HO AND DARK ENERGY USING K2 LCS OF UNPRECEDENTED DETAIL AND ADD SIGNIFICANT KNOWLEDGE TO THE VIRTUALLY UNEXPLORED VERY LOW EDDINGTON REGIME OF AGN.THERE IS AN ONGOING CONTROVERSY OVER THE BASIC PHYSICS OF ONE OF THE KEY TOOLS IN COSMOLOGY THE SN IA STANDARD CANDLE. DO SNE IA GRADUALLY REACH CRITICAL MASS VIA ACCRETION FROM A COMPANION STAR OR DOES IT MERGE WITH ANOTHER WD? IF A WHITE DWARF HAD BEEN ACCRETING MASS FROM A COMPANION STAR AS THE EJECTA REACHES THE COMPANION A SHOCK WOULD FORM WITH OBSERVABLE OPTICAL EMISSION KASEN 2010. THE EMISSION WOULD BE SHORT AND STRONGEST FROM CERTAIN VIEWING ANGLES REQUIRING RAPID CADENCE FOR SEVERAL SNE BEFOREDEFINITIVE CONCLUSIONS CAN BE REACHED. FOR THE 3 SN IA DISCOVERED BY KEPLER MONITORING OF 500 GALAXIES OLLING ET AL 2015 NO SIGNATURES OF A COMPANION WERE FOUND AND TIGHT CONSTRAINTS WERE PLACED. WITH A LARGER SAMPLE WE CAN DETERMINE THE STATISTICS FOR THE TWO POSSIBLE CHANNELS THAT TRIGGER SN IA. MEANWHILE FEATURES DUE TO THE DIFFERENT EXPLOSION PHYSICS DETONATION DEFLAGRATION INWARDS MOVING DIFFUSION WAVES ETC OF IA AND CORE COLLAPSE SNE WILL ALSO BE REVEALED. K2 WILL ALLOW FOR THE FIRST TIME TO TEST MODELSMORE COMPLICATED THAN SIMPLE EXPANDING FIREBALLS.OUR PROGRAM WILL IMPROVE THE SN IA CALIBRATION FOR DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS. BY DETERMINING CORRELATIONS AMONG THE KEY PARAMETERS NEEDED FOR DISTANCE FITTING LIGHT CURVE WIDTH MAXIMUM AND THE EXPLOSION TIME ON THE SCALE OF MINUTES RATHER THAN DAYS THIS PROGRAM WILL IMPROVE THE PRECISION OF DISTANCES AND HENCE THE CONSTRAINTS ON DARK ENERGY.WE WILL UNDERTAKE A MAJOR CONCURRENT GROUND-BASED EFFORT TO OBSERVE THE ENTIRE FIELD EVERY OTHER DAY USING SKYMAPPER ATLAS AND DECAM. WE WILL ALSO COORDINATE MULTI COLOR PHOTOMETRY AND SPECTRA TO CLASSIFY DISCOVERED TRANSIENTS USING LICK GEMINI AND KECK. IN CAMPAIGN C5 AND C6 WE SUCCESSFULLY IDENTIFIED 4 SNE WITH DECAM OBSERVATIONS OF WHICH WE CLASSIFIED 2 WITH GEMINI SPECTRA AS SN IA. THESE DATA COUPLED WITH HIGH PRECISION 30 MINUTE K2 DATA WILL HAVE ENORMOUS LEGACY VALUE.METHODSWE HAVE DEVELOPED AND PROVEN A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL DETRENDING METHOD THAT SIMULTANEOUSLY SOLVES FOR THE SAWTOOTH PATTERN CAUSED BY POINTING MOTION AND FOR THE COEFFICIENTS OF VECTORS FROM PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF TARGETS ON THE SAME CHANNEL. THIS ITERATIVE TECHNIQUE PERMITS US TO DEFINE APERTURE SIZES BETTER SUITED TO THIS PROBLEM AND TO MAKE EXCELLENT CORRECTIONS FOR SENSITIVITY VARIATIONS ON ALL TIME SCALES. TO PROPERLY CORRECT SN LIGHT CURVES THE TECHNIQUE IS APPLIED TO THE QUIET TIME BEFORE THE EVENT AND THEN EXTRAPOLATED THROUGH TO THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN.
$149,708FY2017National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
Association Of Universities For Research In Astronomy, Inc., Tucson AZ