Roger A. Chevalier, W. H. Vanderbilt Professor
- Email: rac5x@virginia.edu
- Phone: (804) 924-4889
- Fax: (804) 924-3104
- Office Hours:
- Office: 251C Astronomy Building
- Address:
- Department of Astronomy
PO Box 3818
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Research Interests:
My primary field is theoretical astrophysics, with an emphasis
on supernovae and their interaction with their surroundings.
These exploding stars are the dominant source of energy
for the gas in normal galaxies like our own. Supernovae evolve
on a timescale of years, so I have made predictions for phenomena
that can be observed from the interaction of light and shock waves
generated by the supernovae with the surrounding medium. A
particularly interesting case is the well-observed nearby supernova
SN 1987A which should show a strong interaction in the next decade.
On a smaller scale, I have investigated how a central neutron star
formed in a supernova interacts with the supernova gas. In SN 1987A,
an initial neutron star may have been converted to a black hole by
the fall back of matter. This work revealed a regime of neutrino-cooled
neutron star accretion that could also apply to neutron stars that
are spiralling into companion stars. On a larger scale, I have studied
mechanisms for shock wave emission and instabilities, and gas flows
in galaxies. Observations of winds from the central regions of
starburst galaxies have substantiated my ideas about how the
supernova power is converted to mass motion.
Research Assistants
-
- Former:
Phil Plait (Ph.D)
Vikram Dwarkadas (Ph.D)
- Current:
Chih-Yueh Wang
Courses recently taught:
-
-
Astronomy 341
Last modified
January 9, 2007 at 11:58:52 EST by rac5x
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~rac5x/index.html