Shy, Unpredictable and Mysterious Stars

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 9th May 2024 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Hybrid

In this talk, I will touch on the life cycle of a star, and then dive into a unique class of stars, cataclysmic variable stars. Cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are a well-known class of binary stars with a white dwarf accretor (more massive star) and a low mass main sequence donor companion. CVs give us an ideal lab for studying mechanisms for jet emissions from high energy astrophysical systems, across several regions of the electromagnetic spectrum – UV, x-ray, optical, and my personal favourite – radio. In this talk, I will share a summary with you on what astronomers know about the formation channels for CVs, how they emit jets and how investigating them can take us a step closer to understanding what triggers Type Ia supernovae – the most commonly observed supernovae. I will also briefly touch on my PhD research on AM CVn stars and radio astronomy techniques – for the more enthusiastic audience members.

Speaker: Anwesha Sahu

I am a PhD researcher at the University of Warwick, working on accretion and outflows in extreme astrophysical environments. I completed my BSc and MSci at the University of Birmingham in 2023, with my MSci dissertation on machine learning techniques for radio astronomy. During my time in Birmingham, I was chair and outreach officer for AstroSoc, organising several talks and outreach events, and also gave several talks. If I’m not talking astronomy, you will probably find me word vomiting about my guinea pigs with unsuspecting people, or working on writing articles. You can read more about my research here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/anweshasahu/ and check out my website with articles/geeky stuff here: https://www.sitaratales.com/