Seminar
Nova Research at Liverpool JMU

Abstract

The Astrophysics Research Institute (ARI) was established at LJMU in 1992. Today the Institute comprises around 70 staff and research students working on topics ranging from stellar evolution to cosmology. In this talk I will give an overview and some highlights of the work undertaken in recent years on Classical and Recurrent novae by the nova group of the ARI. This involves multi-frequency observations of both Galactic novae and those in Local Group galaxies and includes topics such as the exploration of their potential links to the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae. Along the way, I will briefly describe the work of the Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, one of whose primary science drivers is the efficient and effective observation of transient objects such as these, and look forward to our plans for the development of an even larger and faster-reacting robotic telescope at ORM - currently codenamed 'LT2".