London Institute for Stellar Astrophysics
Independent, non-commercial centre to facilitate research in all areas of stellar astrophysics and to communicate it to the wider public
About the Institute
Permanent member: Philipp Podsiadlowski
Friends of the Institute (FoI)
Location: central London (Vauxhall)
Research activities:
- seminars/brainstorming meetings at the Centre
- research visits to the Centre
- organization of international workshops and conferences
Public communication
- commentaries on active events and discoveries
- online resources for scientists, students, teachers and the general public
Ask an astronomer activities
Contact: lon.lisa@outlook.com
Topics in Stellar Astrophysics
- Stellar Evolution
- Star Formation
- Supernovae and Explosive Events
- Binaries (including X-ray binaries)
- Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
AAS Journal Author Series (YouTube Interview, March 25, 2026)
Xiangcun Meng and Philipp Podsiadlowski discuss their model for SN 2020eyi with Frank Timmes (Editor of the Astrophysical Journal), which was just published in that journal. This was the first Type Ia supernova showing the signature of nearby, helium-rich circumstellar material (CSM). In this talk, we discuss how such CSM can form in the single-degenerate model for Type Ia supernovae.
LISA INAUGURATION DAY: March 6, 2026
Formal opening of the Institute. Roughly 40 of some of the top stellar astrophysicists in the world, including a Nobel Laureate (all Friends of the Institute), met over Zoom to celebrate the new Institute. An intense brainstorming session took place on the problems of how Science operates. It was found that methods for the evaluations of individuals and scientific papers were currently wholly inadequate, the ways grants are being awarded a farce, and that these lead to a dramatic deterioration of the quality of Science in most countries in the Western world. In contrast, other countries in the East are doing their homework and are already overtaking the West. This is a pure policy problem and can and must be addressed. It will be an exciting key project at LISA to develop a strategy plan which can then be implemented in the UK and other countries, perhaps the EU if there is a request. The principal reason for the disastrous situation is the top-down approach in most areas of the field. Clearly new ideas need to be explored to correct and improve the current system.
SCIENCE ALERTS
Evidence of a binary origin for a Type IIP supernova (China Daily Article, March 11, 2026)
In an international collaboration, led by Chinese authors, Niu Zexi and Sun NingChen, and Emmanouil Zapartas (Greece), the paper shows, for the first time, that some red supergiants exploding as Type IIP supernovae can be the product of a previous binary merger. Such mergers have long been predicted by theory (e.g. Podsiadlowski 1992, Zapartas 2017), but have so far eluded discovery.
New gravitational wave data support bimodal black-hole mass distribution.
The LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA collaborations recently released the data on the mergers of compact objects detected by gravitational waves in their O4a science run. This now brings the total number of detected black-hole mergers to 158, already constraining formation scenarios for stellar-mass black holes. The largely model-independent chirp-mass distribution strongly supports a bimodal black-hole mass distribution as predicted by recent work that combines advances in our understanding of the core-collapse/supernova mechanism with up-to-date stellar physics (Schneider, Podsiadlowski & Müller 2021; Schneider, Podsiadlowski & Laplace 2023). It also rules out other commonly used black-hole formation prescriptions (see Research Note 1: Willcox et al. 2025).
News from the Centre
Highlight preprint(s)/article(s) of the week (archive of highlights)
Week of April 6, 2026
“An Intertwined Short and Long GRB with 4-minute Separation.” (Li et al., arXiv:2603.28699)
“The coexistence of merger and collapsar signatures in a single event challenges
existing progenitor frameworks and calls for a re-evaluation of GRB classification
schemes and progenitor scenarios.” (from Abstract)
From recent weeks
“Observations of SN 2021yfj reveal that its progenitor is a massive star stripped down to its O/Si/S core, which remarkably continued to expel vast quantities of silicon-, sulfur-, and argon-rich material before the explosion, informing us that current theories for how stars evolve are too narrow.”
Comments on current discoveries/controversies
Short research reports on current events/discoveries (reviewed by the Centre).
RN1: “New gravitational-wave data support a bimodal black-hole mass distribution.” (Willcox et al., 2025) (arXiv:2508.20787)
Hot current papers
To be added
Activities at the Centre
Current research/papers (selection)
- “A binary merger product as the direct progenitor of a Type II-P supernova.” (Niu, et al. 2026, Science Bulletin, 71, 5)
- “Evolution of wide O star binaries through their LBV stage. Population synthesis with mass-ejection-driven orbital evolution.” (Xu et al., 2026, arXiv:2603.14840)
- “Formation of black holes from He stars.” (Long et al., 2026, A&A, 707, 390)
- “Localized 18O production in white dwarf mergers.” (Holas et al., 2026, EPJA, 62, 50)
- “The helium common-envelope wind scenario for SN 2020eyj.” (Meng & Podsiadlowski, 2026, ApJ, 997,96)
- “Good things always come in 3s: trimodality in the binary black-hole chirp-mass distribution supports bimodal black-hole formation.” (Willcox et al., 2026, arXiv: 2508.20797)
- “Magnetic field generation in mergers of massive main sequence stars.” (Ohlmann, Schneider, et al. 2026, arXiv:2512.13424)
- “Formation of Black Holes from He stars.” (Long et al., 2026, A&A, 707, 390)
- “Supernova-induced binary-interaction-powered supernovae: a model for SN2022jli.” (R. Hirai et al., 2025, ApJ, 955, 55)
- “Supernovae from stellar mergers and accretors of binary mass transfer: Implications for Type IIP, 1987A-like and interacting supernovae.” (F. R. N. Schneider et al., 2025, A&A, 700, 253)
- “A fundamental limit to how close binary systems can get via stable mass transfer shapes the properties of binary black hole mergers.” (J. Klencki et al., 2026, A&A, 706, 296)
- “Pulsations change the structures of massive stars before they explode: interpreting the nearby supernova SN 2023ixf.” (Laplace et al., 2026, ApJ, 998, 40)
- “Explosions of pulsating red supergiants: a natural pathway for the diversity of Type II-P/L supernovae “(Bronner et al. 2025, A&A, 703, 61)
- “It’s written in the massive stars: The role of stellar physics in the formation of black holes.” (E. Laplace et al., 2025, A&A, 695. 71)
- “An upper limit on the spins of merging binary black holes formed through isolated binary evolution.” (P. Marchant et al., 2024, A&A, 691, 339)
- “Large-scale ordered magnetic fields generated in mergers of helium white dwarfs.” (R. Pakmor et al., 2024, A&A, 691, 13)
- “Neutron Star Kicks plus Rockets as a Mechanism for Forming Wide Low-eccentricity Neutron Star Binaries.” (R. Hirai et al., 2024, ApJL, 972, L18)
- “Evolution and final fate of massive post-common-envelope binaries.” (D. Wei et al., 2024, A&A, 688, 87)
- “Going from 3D to 1D: A 1D approach to common-envelope evolution.” (V. Bronner et al. 2024, A&A, 683, 65)
- “Bimodal Black Hole Mass Distribution and Chirp Masses of Binary Black Hole Mergers.” (F. R. N. Schneider et al., 2023, ApJ, 950, 9)
International conferences
- SN Ia Workshop in Florida, May 11-18, 2025 (with Peter Höflich at FSU)
- “40 Years of SN 1987A: Understanding Supernova Diversity,” Guilin, May 2027 (with ICESUN, Kunming)
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