Exploring the core of supernovae using gravitational wave observations

Gravitational waves offer the potential to probe the core collapse supernovae directly (CCSNe).

Ordinarily the bright core of a star precludes the direct observation of a core collapse but since GWs pass through matter without scattering or absorbing they offer the unique possibility of directly observing the core of a supernova. The challenge is that the GW signals are likely to be extremely weak.

In this project you will enhance the detection range of supernovae by combining several marginal SNe events over the years. For example, take 15 optically triggered  CCSNe in the virgo cluster and detect GW in the population of events instead of the single one. It has potential to increase the detection range.
 
This project involves producing simulated populations, injecting them in read data, reconstruct the events with cWB and investigating which distributional test performs better  in detecting the population. 
 
In this project you will get to work with Professor Michele Zanolin, Supernova expert who is based in the US but will be spending large fraction of 2023 and 2024 on sabbatical at the University of Adelaide.

Supervisors