4.
Flares from the centers of galaxies with Gaia and OGLE surveysNada Ihanec, 2018, master's thesis
Abstract: Modern wide-field-of-view and all-sky satellites (e.g. Gaia) and ground based surveys (e.g. OGLE) repeatedly cover a large part of the sky and are detecting new, transient astrophysical sources on daily basis.
In this thesis I analyzed the data from Gaia and OGLE transient surveys, with special focus on transients located near the centres of galaxies to detect possible Tidal Disruption Events. These occur when a star gets too close to a Super-Massive Black Hole, which lurks in the centres of most galaxies, and gets disrupted due to the black hole's gravitational tidal forces.
The goal of my research was to detect possible Tidal Disruption Events and eliminate false candidates, such as supernovae. The work involved daily inspection of new alerts, identified with Gaia and OGLE Transient Detection System. I searched for potential transients in galactic nuclei and in case there was such a transient detected, follow-up spectroscopic observations were initiated in order to help classify the object.
During the course of my work I analyzed spectra obtained with the largest telescopes in the world (SALT, VLT) and performed the spectral template matching, recognition of spectral features related to known classes of transients, determination of redshift etc.
Keywords: Flares, transients, Gaia, OGLE, supernovae, tidal disruption events, nuclear transients
Published in RUNG: 14.05.2019; Views: 5121; Downloads: 138
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