Dr. Robert Izzard

Dr Robert Izzard - Credit: Surrey University Dr Robert Izzard
Credit: Surrey University

From Roberts, University of Surrey page, he says-
I am an STFC Rutherford fellow and lecturer in the astrophysics group at the University of Surrey.
I was previously at the Institute of Astronomy, part of the University of Cambridge. I was also a teaching by-fellow at Churchill College.
Prior to this I was a W2 Professor at the University of Bonn, a Marie-Curie fellow at l'Université libre de Bruxelles, an NWO fellow at the University of Utrecht and I did my PhD at the IOA in Cambridge, graduating in 2004.

Date	Talk at GAS meeting
2 Jan 2020	Binary stars: astrophysical laboratories The stars in the sky are not always isolated and alone: many live with companions in binary star systems. If the stars in a binary are close enough they can interact by interchanging mass and spin, leading to astophysical phenomena like thermonuclear supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. I explain how binary stars are bound by the fundamental force of gravity, and how they can escape this force when one of the stars explodes. Some of these we see as hypervelocity stars zooming out of our Galaxy, while those that remain bound can make the recently-detected gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Binary stars provide a laboratory in the sky to study such fundamental physics and are critical to our understanding of the Universe. I will show some computer simulations of binary stars as used in our state of the art research.

Date

Talk at GAS meeting

2 Jan 2020

Binary stars: astrophysical laboratories

The stars in the sky are not always isolated and alone: many live with companions in binary star systems. If the stars in a binary are close enough they can interact by interchanging mass and spin, leading to astophysical phenomena like thermonuclear supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.
I explain how binary stars are bound by the fundamental force of gravity, and how they can escape this force when one of the stars explodes. Some of these we see as hypervelocity stars zooming out of our Galaxy, while those that remain bound can make the recently-detected gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Binary stars provide a laboratory in the sky to study such fundamental physics and are critical to our understanding of the Universe. I will show some computer simulations of binary stars as used in our state of the art research.

Guildford Astronomical Society

Dr. Robert Izzard

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