Stellar explosions and environmental impact

The universe is host to a plethora of phenomena that can release immense amounts of energy over short timescales, making them observable over very large distances. Many of these phenomena are associated with so-called compact objects like black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs, as well as the cataclysmic processes surrounding their formation. The strong gravitational and magnetic fields in their vicinity can generate high luminosities, accelerate particles to extreme energies and drive powerful outflows. Examples of such phenomena include supernovae that mark the final evolutionary stages of massive stars, as well as the highly magnetized neutron stars known as magnetars, which are occasionally born in these explosions.

Our working group studies the physical processes that take place near compact objects, as well as the interactions of their outflows with the surrounding medium and the subsequent impact on galactic environments. Connecting the mechanisms and energy sources that drive such phenomena with their observational manifestations is a multifaceted challenge that bridges hydrodynamics, plasma and particle physics, radiative transfer, etc. In our group, we tackle these problems by combining numerical simulations, theoretical modeling, and observational data analysis.