Christopher Kochanek
Ohio State University, OH·Astronomy & Astrophysics
When a star many times heavier than the Sun runs out of fuel, its core collapses. Usually this sets off a supernova, a huge explosion.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
failed supernovae
core-collapse supernovae
black hole formation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Measure what fraction of massive-star core collapses fail and form a black hole without a supernova, by monitoring evolved stars in 27 nearby galaxies with the Large Binocular Telescope.
- Confirm the team's existing failed-supernova candidate, find new candidates in the LBT survey and characterize their properties.
- Characterize supernova progenitors, the stars that later explode, including how their brightness varies, using LBT monitoring data and the populations of nearby stars.
- Constrain whether stars have companions just before and after death, in part by measuring accurate distances to supernova remnants in the Milky Way.
More about the research
But some collapses may fail: the star may simply vanish into a black hole without exploding. How often this happens matters for understanding where black holes come from. This is a timely question now that gravitational-wave detectors are spotting many merging black holes.
Why it matters
Gravitational-wave instruments are detecting more and more black hole mergers. Knowing what fraction of dying massive stars collapse quietly into black holes, and which stars do so, gives astronomers the starting conditions needed to interpret these events. It also helps explain the observed range of masses of black holes and neutron stars, the dense remnants left behind when stars die.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Benjamin Williams
University of Washington, WA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure delay time distributions, the time between star formation and the appearance of each object type, for Wolf-Rayet stars, stripped stars and supergiants in resolved Local Group galaxies.
Kareem El-Badry
California Institute of Technology, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics·Early-career
Measure how common post-interaction binary stars are across the Milky Way and estimate the mass distribution of black holes and neutron stars, using gaiamock software to correct for which binaries Gaia can detect.
Douglas Gies
Georgia State University, GA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure mass-loss rates of massive stars by comparing CHARA Array interferometric observations, which combine several telescopes for fine detail, at different wavelengths using the new SPICA visible-light instrument.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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