Stripped envelope supernovae (SE-SNe), specifically Type Ib, Ic, and Ic-BL, are the deaths of massive stars that have shed their outer hydrogen and sometimes helium envelopes prior to explosion. Among these, Type Ic-BL events (broad-lined Ic) are distinguished by their exceptionally high ejecta velocities. A subset of Ic-BL SNe are related to long-duration gamma-ray bursts, making them among the most energetic and extreme phenomena in the universe. Understanding what drives this association, and why only some Ic-BL SNe produce GRBs, is one of the open questions in high-energy astrophysics.

I work on radio and X-ray observations of stripped envelope supernovae, with my current focus on Ic-BL SNe: exploring the diversity among them and understanding how they relate to other stripped envelope supernovae. Radio and X-ray radiation give us information beyond what optical provides, serving as probes of density and circumstellar medium structure, and offering evidence for the presence of jets or a central engine. They also encode the mass-loss history of the progenitor system, which is key to understanding what kind of star exploded.

Observing Time

Program Role Telescope Time
Probing Late-Time Physics of Radio Bright Type Ic-BL Supernovae with the uGMRT PI uGMRT 12 hrs
Probing Late-Time Physics of Radio Bright Type Ic-BL Supernovae with the VLA PI VLA 9 hrs
Swift TOO PI Swift 25 ks · multiple objects
GMRT Followup of 5 Stripped-Envelope Supernovae to Complete a Volume-Limited Survey for Circumstellar Interaction Co-I uGMRT 20 hrs
GLIMPSE: GMRT Low-Frequency Investigation of Massive Progenitors of Supernova Explosions Co-I uGMRT 44 hrs · multiple cycles
Project GLIMPSE: uGMRT Follow-Up of Five Radio Bright Young Core Collapse Supernovae Co-I uGMRT 55 hrs · multiple cycles
Late-Time Multi-band Follow-up of VLASS Detected Type IIb Supernovae Co-I VLA 7.5 hrs
Targeted VLA Followup of Supernovae Interacting with Dense Helium-rich Material Co-I VLA 28.78 hrs

Supernova Sky Map

Supernovae from the Transient Name Server and the Open Supernova Catalog, plotted by sky position. TNS data updated daily. Open full map →  Browse catalog →

Ia Ia-CSM Iax II IIn IIb Ib Ibn Ic Icn Ic-BL Other supernovae
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Code

  • xray_uplim Computes X-ray upper limits on count rate and optionally flux and luminosity using the Bayesian framework of Kraft et al. (1991) for major X-ray telescopes. GitHub ↗
  • radio_lightcurves Pipeline for making radio light curves from major radio surveys.
  • arnett-lightcurves Fits Arnett's model to bolometric light curves of supernovae to estimate ejecta mass and nickel yield. GitHub ↗ Webtool ↗
  • sn-digest Pulls the latest arXiv submissions related to supernovae and explains them in plain English using AI. GitHub ↗