In the APoPHiS project, I will study a class of the most powerful supernova explosions in the universe to understand the types of massive stars that explode at the ends of their lives. These explosions, which involve many times more energy than normal supernovae, are called "Type II superluminous supernovae". I will study this little-known supernova type with an unprecedented set of data, monitoring the brightness of the event over a wide wavelength range and a long period of time. In this way I will obtain information on the structure and elemental abundances of the exploding star, and fill gaping holes in our knowledge of superluminous supernovae and their progenitor stars. This will be made possible by new instrumentation and my guaranteed access to it. The results will help us understand the evolution of massive stars, which in turn has an impact on our understanding of galaxies and the early universe. The research project will be carried out at the University of Turku.

2025

2028