Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The main focus of this proposal lie in observing, modeling and interpreting cosmological transient objects, such as supernovae (SNe) and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). These events represent the most energetic explosions in the Universe. Even though there are dedicated instruments to identify and observe these explosions and aftereffects, they remain a big mystery. The environments that they explode into play a big role in characterizing these events. My program will mainly involve studying the interaction of the ejecta from these explosions with the surrounding medium. X-ray and radio wavebands in supernovae are crucial because the emission from the circumstellar interaction manifests itself mainly in these bands. My program mainly involves studying Type IIn supernovae with the Expanded Very Large Array radio telescope and then carry out multiwaveband modeling to understand the physical nature of the circumstellar interaction. GRBs can be understood through multiwaveband modeling of their afterglow emission. Our radio observations will give accurate estimation of the energy and measure the size of the fireball if the emission is scintillated in early phase. Our studies of the afterglow with Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the EVLA will detect reverse shock emission which traces the central engine properties. I plan to involve a graduate student for the supernova project and an undergraduate student for the GRB project.