About

Currently, Raffaella’s research focuses on super-luminous supernovae, gamma ray bursts, gravitational waves, and tidal disruption events. There is still so much that is unknown about the evolution of massive stars in the final stages of their lives and the physics behind the stellar explosions that we see; Margutti seeks to understand the physics leading up to, during, and after these transients. She wants to understand why particular objects explode the way they do. Often, we don’t see the object before it explodes, we just see the explosion, so we backtrack the characteristics of the explosion to the star that exploded.

Gamma Ray Bursts

GRBs are high energy light emissions from distant galaxies. They are often produced from binary neutron star mergers (short GRBs with a duration of less than 2 seconds), or supernovae (GRBs that can last up to a few minutes). Raf analyzes these GRBs in order to determine their origin and properties, which helps determine the nature of the transient (whether it was a neutron star merger, supernova, etc.).

Gravitational Waves

Recently, we have been able to take advantage of the gravitational wave as a form of data; rather than just using light (x-rays, visible light, etc), we are able to record gravitational emissions from transients. Gravitational waves are able to communicate different information that was once inferred from just the light waves (for example the mass of the transient).

Other Tools

Raffaella uses a myriad of telescopes to collect all the data; from ALMA to Fermi to Keck, and countless more. Some of these telescopes are optical and record the light emitted on a visual spectrum; however, just are there are telescopes geared to measure visible light, there are telescopes for invisible light. Radio and gamma-ray telescopes record what we cannot see, as the names suggest, radio waves and gamma-rays. Raf has put together a team filled with experts on different waves, from x-rays to gravitational waves, which allows for an all around full understanding of the physics up until the supernova actually occurs.

Other Involvement

Before coming to Northwestern, Margutti was a research associate at New York University, a visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, a Harvard Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics, and a “Swift” post-doc at the INAF Brera Observatory. Now, her research occupies a good bit of her time, but she is still head of the gravitational wave panel of LSST (large synoptic surveying telescope) being built in Chile (to be completed in 2020 or 2021). The completion of this telescope will be revolutionary for observation, as it will be able to detect 1000 new supernovae every night! Raf asks and answers questions that will help optimize the efficiency of this telescope.

Image Credits:

Pan-STARRS/CfA/M. Nicholl et al.

NASA, ESA, P. CHALLIS AND R. KIRSHNER/HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS, B. SUGERMAN/STSC

NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.