Ken J. Shen

About me:

I'm an associate staff researcher in the UC Berkeley astronomy department where I study the astrophysics of white dwarfs in interacting binary systems, with a focus on thermonuclear phenomena.  I received my PhD in September 2010 in the Department of Physics at UC Santa Barbara where I worked with Lars Bildsten at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, and from 2011-2014, I was a postdoctoral Einstein fellow at UC Berkeley and LBNL.

CV:

shen_cv.pdf

Popular science press:

Four new hypervelocity Type Ia supernova survivors, including the two fastest stars in the Milky Way: New Scientist, ScienceAlert, Space.com, Universe Today

Recent progress on Type Ia supernova simulations: Quanta

More accurate modeling of white dwarf explosions: AAS Nova

A past stellar merger as the source of a blue ring nebula: Science, NASA, CNET, Sky & Telescope, Bad Astronomy, The Independent, Space.com, Phys.org, CNN, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, Smithsonian

Direct evidence for shocks powering classical novae: NASA, IFLScience, Phys.org, ScienceDaily

A new class of survivors of thermonuclear supernovae: Scientific American, New Scientist, Nature, Live Science

Circumstellar interaction and SN 2015cp: Phys.org, ScienceDaily, GeekWire

Hypervelocity stars in Gaia and confirmation of the D6 Type Ia supernova scenario: Scientific American, Science #1, Daily Beast, Quanta, ScienceNews, Room, Astronomy, AAS Nova, ESA/Gaia, SALT, Science #2

Planet - star mergers as an explanation for Boyajian's star: Popular Science, Gizmodo, New Scientist

Progenitor constraints from very early observations of SN 2011fe: UC Berkeley

Pre-explosion imaging and progenitor constraints from SN 2011fe: UC Berkeley

".Ia" supernovae and the rapidly fading SN 2002bj: Phys.org, Universe Today

Contact:

email: kenshen AT astro.berkeley.edu