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Tony Piro
Mailcode 350-17, Caltech
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Theoretical Astrophysics in the Tapir group at Caltech. Previously I was a TAC fellow in the astronomy department at University of California, Berkeley. I completed my Ph.D. under the guidance of my advisor Lars Bildsten, permanent member of the KITP. |
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Background
My research is in the field of theoretical astrophysics, with a wide focus on a number of different topics involving compact objects and explosive events. Some of the specific projects I have investigated are low mass X-ray binary evolution and accretion stability, nonradial mode spectrum and stability on rotating neutron stars, the interactions between accretion disks and white dwarf surfaces, and Type Ia supernova progenitor models. More recently I have been interested in the mergers of compact objects, tidal interactions, and magnetars at the center of supernovae. These astrophysical "laboratories" allow for the exciting prospect of studying a wide variety of fields in physics (including gravity, fluid dynamics, magnetic fields, and condensed matter) in extreme physical environments--many of which cannot be replicated with experiments on Earth. |
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A Type Ia supernova is the explosion of a star that can be as bright as 10 billion stars. Thousands of these events have been observed, and they have even been used to measure the growth of our Universe. This led to the discovery of dark energy, for which the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded. Nevertheless, how they detonate and what the progenitor stars are has been a puzzle. In my previous work I made theoretical predictions of what would be seen when the burning front first reached the surface of the star, showing that it is sensitive to the star's radius. But I was skeptical whether this relatively dim effect would ever be observed. Amazingly, in August 2011, supernova 2011fe exploded in the nearby Pinwheel Galaxy--the closest Type Ia in almost 40 years! Observers were able to get data just 4 hours after the explosion. Because the effect I predicted was not observed, the radius of the exploding star must have been less than 1/50th of our Sun. This means that it was almost certainly a white dwarf, which is the first time this has been confirmed. More recently, I have done modeling of 2011fe's lightcurve over the first 5 days to show that it may have had radioactive material near it's surface. This puts important constraints on the models for how the star exploded. |
Click the picture for a larger version. |
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Research Interests
Below is a list of some of my research projects. For some I have included links to simple summaries that give an introduction to these exciting topics.
Links
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