Research
As a PhD student at NC State University, I initiated the research direction of the evolution of massive stars, which tied in with my group’s existing expertise in core-collapse supernovae. The evolution of massive stars determines the rates of the most energetic transients in the sky, the population of compact remnants, and the chemical enrichment of our universe. Massive stars are also unique laboratories for nuclear and particle physics in extreme conditions that cannot be studied in the laboratory on Earth. However, our understanding of these stars is limited by systematic uncertainties in input physics. Fortunately, the modern era of multi-messenger and transient astronomy offers exciting opportunities for probing the stellar interior to better constrain the physics of massive stars. I am particularly interested in neutrinos as a probe of the pre-collapse stellar core and the explosion itself.
A red supergiant in the last hours of its life, and the Earth. Its burning core emits a rising flux of neutrinos that leave the star immediately and travel straight to us, changing flavor as they go. Photons cannot leave immediately: they are absorbed and reprocessed by everything above the core, so the star looks much as it always has right up until it explodes.