Gokul Srinivasaragavan (U. Maryland): "The Diversity of Massive Stellar Deaths and Relativistic Jets: Unraveling a Cosmic Tandem"

We are entering an era in time-domain astronomy where understanding the diversity of relativistic stellar explosions has become more fruitful than ever. Recent time-domain surveys, including the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), have helped discover numerous transients that exist somewhere in the continuum of relativistic stellar explosions, ranging from non-relativistic ordinary broad-lined Type Ic core-collapse supernovae (SNe) to highly-relativistic gamma-ray burst (GRB) - SN events. These surveys have also opened the door to studying other relativistic transients, like orphan afterglows and fast blue optical transients, that are not associated with a gamma-ray trigger but are instead found serendipitously at the optical wavelengths. During this talk, I will explore the continuum of relativistic stellar explosions, highlighting studies that aim to illuminate major open questions in every regime. I will also discuss how the next generation of time-domain missions can help unravel this complex landscape.