The study of astronomical transients in the infrared

Several key, open questions in astrophysics can be tackled by searching for and

mining large datasets for transient phenomena. The evolution of massive stars and

compact objects can be studied over cosmic time by identifying supernovae (SNe) and

gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in other galaxies and determining their redshifts. Modeling

GRBs and their afterglows to probe the jets of GRBs can shed light on the emission

mechanism, rate, and energetics of these events.

In Chapter 1, I discuss the current state of astronomical transient study, including

sources of interest, instrumentation, and data reduction techniques, with a focus

on work in the infrared. In Chapter 2, I present original work published in the

Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, testing InGaAs infrared

detectors for astronomical use (Strausbaugh, Jackson, and Butler 2018); highlights of

this work include observing the exoplanet transit of HD189773B, and detecting the

nearby supernova SN2016adj with an InGaAs detector mounted on a small telescope

at ASU. In Chapter 3, I discuss my work on GRB jets published in the Astrophysical

Journal Letters, highlighting the interesting case of GRB 160625B (Strausbaugh et al.

2019), where I interpret a late-time bump in the GRB afterglow lightcurve as evidence

for a bright-edged jet. In Chapter 4, I present a look back at previous years of

RATIR (Re-ionization And Transient Infra-Red Camera) data, with an emphasis on

the efficiency of following up GRBs detected by the Fermi Space Telescope, before

some final remarks and brief discussion of future work in Chapter 5.