Research project Zwicky Transient Facility – searching for cosmic explosions

The ZTF project uses a robotic telescope on Palomar in California to search for cosmic explosions like supernovae (exploding stars) or kilonovae (colliding neutronstars). Several groups at the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Physics use these data to understand supernova physics, cosmology or the creation of the heavy elements in the universe.

Using an old telescope on Palmoar, now refurbished with a huge CCD camera and fully automatic, the ZTF project can systematically search for new transient phenomena in the sky every night of the year. Credit: Caltech/Palomar.

Within the ZTF project astronomers and physicists at Stockholm University participate in several science areas, all connected to research being done at the Oskar Klein Centre.
Many in the Department of Physics Cosmology group use the discovered Type Ia supernovae for investigating the expansion rate of the Universe. There is also a keen interest in finding gravitationally lensed supernovae with ZTF.

At the Department of Astronomy, the supernova group investigates what stars explode as what kinds of supernovae, and what is powering these distant stellar explosions. Superluminous supernovae and other rare events are studied in detail.

In recent years, a great interest in multiwavelength astrophysics has also emerged, and members of the ZTF Stockholm team are eager to find the next kilonova connected to gravitational waves. In this effort we work together with theoretical groups and also use ZTF to plan ahead for the next generation of transient astronomy with the LSST.

This research project has no members.

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