Speaker
Description
One of the key sources of new elements in the Universe is the explosion of massive stars (core collapse supernovae) and their remnants (kilonovae). Understanding the stars that led to these explosions, and the evolutionary steps they must have followed, is essential to constructing a detailed picture of how our Universe was enriched over cosmic time. In this talk I will present two approaches by which this topic can be tackled using the results from the Binary Population And Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) code. First I will present the methods by which we can retrace the evolutionary steps of individual observed transients (e.g GW170817); secondly I will present recent results obtained from combining the BPASS data and cosmological simulations to obtain transient rate predictions across cosmic time. I will conclude with current challenges and necessary next steps required to push these research streams in the next few years
