Yize Dong

I am a sixth year Ph.D student working with Stefano Valenti. My research interest is mainly about understanding the nature of supernovae and other transients. cv

Research interests:

Type IIP supernovae (SNe), the most common type of core-collapse supernova, are believed to originate from the collapse of stars more massive than 8 solar mass. However, we still don't fully understand the progenitors of these objects. One method that is widely used to estimate the progenitor masses of Type II SNe is hydrodynamic modeling of SN light curves. Through comparing observed light curves with model light curves, many progenitor properties, such as mass, radius and explosion energy, could be determined. Another approach to estimate the progenitor mass is nebular spectral modelling. Here the structure and composition of the ejecta can be constrained, and the intensity of the [OI] 6300,6363 doublet can be used to derive the progenitor mass. Unfortunately, rapid discovery and follow-up of SNe is still rare, and often Type IIP SNe are not followed out to the nebular phase when larger telescopes are needed. My currect work is focusing on using the DLT40 survey to discover these SNe as early as possible and get well-sampled follow-up observations, which gives us unique opportunities to shed light on their progenitors and their surrounding CSM.