The Evolution, Influence, and Ultimate Fate of Massive Stars: Transient Phenomena and Stellar Astrophysics in the Era of Wide-Field Surveys

An improved understanding of the lifecycle of massive stars benefits every subfield in astrophysics.  Through their ionizing radiation, power stellar winds, nucleosynthesis, and deaths as supernova (SN) explosions, massive stars give birth to black holes and neutron stars, while stoking the dynamical and chemical evolution of the universe.  Although the study of massive stars is one of the oldest subfields in astronomy, the recent advent of wide-field time-domain surveys has launched an upheaval in the field of stellar evolution.  In this talk I will highlight on-going efforts to constrain the evolution, influence, and ultimate fate of massive stars, using observations of both transient phenomena and resolved massive star populations in local group galaxies.  Within this context, I will also discues several aspects of the recent discovery of an electromagnetic counterpart to the neutron star merger identified by LIGO/Virgo.

Speaker: Maria Drout, Carnegie