Some of our recent highlight results include:
- Nature paper presenting the first application of "flash spectroscopy" to reveal a progenitor star blowing a Wolf-Rayet-like wind for the Type IIb Supernova SN 2013cu.
- Postdoc Dr. Giorgos Leloudas led a paper proposing an explanation to the most luminous transient observed so far as a disruption of a star by a spinning black hole (Nature Astronomy paper).
- Staff Scientsit Dr. Ofer Yaron led a Nature Physics paper (see also news and views) using the earliest spectroscopic observations of a Type II supernova ("flash spectroscopy") to chart the confined distribution of CSM around the supernova progenitor, indicating pre-explosion instabilities months prior to the supernova event may be common. Some press reports from Science, The Guardian, USA today, and Space.com.
- Nature paper presenting our discovery of a new type of supernova explosion (Type Icn) arising from the death of a massive Wolf-Rayet star. Some PR materials from Weizmann are here and in hebrew here. You can see press coverage here and here (in hebrew) and also here and here (in English) and also, if you like, here (in Swedish).
If you are interested in supernovae and their classification: a chapter I wrote in the new "SN Handbook" about classification of SNe is now online (also available on arXiv).