Gr@v Seminar - Radio jet studies in Superluminous Supernovae and Cataclysmic Variables - 05 junho 2018

Recent advances in radio telescopes in sensitivity, response time, and wavelength coverage have opened a wealth of new research opportunities. This is particularly the case for transients, where high sensitivity and rapid response is crucial. I will describe how radio observations of two classes of objects are helping to further our understanding of jet physics. Astrophysical jets have been detected in objects as diverse as protostellar objects and supermassive black holes, yet despite this we still have not answered the key question of what system properties are necessary to launch a jet. I will discuss how we are using radio observations to answer this question in two distinct classes of objects at opposite ends of the energy scale. First, the Cataclysmic Variables (binaries in which a white dwarf accretes from a low mass main sequence star via roche-lobe overflow) were previously thought not to launch jets, and have been used to constrain jet launching models. Despite this, recent radio observations have likely indicated a jet in one system, and have shown that this system is not unique. At the other end of the energy scale, we still do not know if the most powerful stellar explosions (Super Luminous Supernovae) launch jets. I will conclude by highlighting how the combination of the powerful new radio telescope MeerKAT in combination with its optical counterpart MeerLICHT, and the future Square Kilometer Array (SKA) are going to revolutionize this field of study in the following years.