Bethany Cobb ’02 – Yale University
Title: “Outshining the Universe: the Mystery of Gamma-ray Bursts”
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been puzzling astronomers for decades. The 2004 launch of the Swift GRB satellite, with its onboard X-ray and UV/optical telescopes, was meant to help solve the mystery of GRBs. Over 200 Swift-era bursts have been detected, and this windfall of data has resulted in both the strengthening of some pre-Swift GRB hypotheses and the weakening of others. Using the SMARTS 1.3m telescope in Chile, I have been running a target-of-opportunity campaign to study GRB afterglows and GRB-related SNe in the optical and infrared. These observations have shown that there exists a large population of low-energy, long-duration GRBs associated with luminous supernovae, but have also raised questions about the exact nature of the GRB-supernovae connection.