Or Graur

Biography

I am an Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, as well as a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History and an Honorary Associate Professor at University College London. In 2013, I received my PhD in Physics and Astronomy from Tel-Aviv University. I then held two postdoctoral research positions at The Johns Hopkins University (2013-2014) and New York University (2014-2016), before moving to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian as an independent National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2020).

Research interests

I study supernovae - the explosions of stars - as well as other transient astrophysical phenomena. I use observations (images and spectra) obtained with ground- and space-based observatories and large-scale spectroscopic surveys (such as SDSS and DESI). I am specifically interested in uncovering the nature of the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, studying these supernovae when they are several years old, and conducting population studies of supernovae in general. I am also working on discovering and characterizing tidal disruption events - flares caused by stars that are ripped apart by super-massive black holes - and the galaxies in which they occur.

Research outputs

2025

AT 2018dyk: tidal disruption event or active galactic nucleus? Follow-up observations of an extreme coronal line emitter with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

Clark, P., Callow, J., Graur, O., Greenwell, C., Hu, L., Aguilar, J., Ahlen, S., Bianchi, D., Brooks, D., Claybaugh, T., Dawson, K., Macorra, A. d. l., Doel, P., Gontcho, S. G. A., Gutierrez, G., Honscheid, K., Juneau, S., Kehoe, R., Kisner, T., Kremin, A., Landriau, M., Guillou, L. L., Meisner, A., Miquel, R., Moustakas, J., Pérez-Ràfols, I., Sanchez, E., Schubnell, M., Sprayberry, D., Tarlé, G., Weaver, B. A., Zou, H.

24 May 2025, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 540, 1, p. 871-906

Research output: Article

The rate of extreme coronal line emitters in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey LOWZ sample

Callow, J., Graur, O., Clark, P., Kim, A. G., O'Connor, B., Aguilar, J., Ahlen, S., Bianchi, D., Brooks, D., Macorra, A. d. l., Dey, A., Doel, P., Forero-Romero, J. E., Gaztañaga, E., Gontcho, S. G. A., Gutierrez, G., Kehoe, R., Lambert, A., Landriau, M., Guillou, L. L., Meisner, A., Miquel, R., Moustakas, J., Prada, F., Pérez-Ràfols, I., Rossi, G., Sanchez, E., Schubnell, M., Seo, H., Sprayberry, D., Tarlé, G., Weaver, B. A., Zou, H.

1 May 2025, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 539, 1, p. 231-245

Research output: Article

The ancient Egyptian cosmological vignette: first visual evidence of the Milky Way and trends in coffin depictions of the sky goddess Nut

Graur, O.

28 Apr 2025, In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. 28, 1, p. 97-124

Research output: Article

2024

The MOST Hosts Survey: spectroscopic observation of the host galaxies of ~40,000 transients using DESI

Soumagnac, M. T., Nugent, P., Knop, R. A., Ho, A. Y. Q., Hohensee, W., Awbrey, A., Andersen, A., Aldering, G., Ventura, M., Aguilar, J. N., Ahlen, S., Benzvi, S. Y., Brooks, D., Brout, D., Claybaugh, T., Davis, T. M., Dawson, K., Macorra, A. d. l., Dey, A., Dey, B., Doel, P., Douglass, K. A., Forero-Romero, J. E., Gaztanaga, E., Gontcho, S. G. A., Graur, O., Guy, J., Hahn, C., Honscheid, K., Howlett, C., Kim, A. G., Kisner, T., Kremin, A., Lambert, A., Landriau, M., Lang, D., Guillou, L. L., Manera, M., Meisner, A., Miquel, R., Moustakas, J., Myers, A. D., Nie, J., Palmese, A., Parkinson, D., Poppett, C., Prada, F., Qin, F., Rezaie, M., Rossi, G., Sanchez, E., Schlegel, D. D., Schubnell, M., Silber, J. H., Tarle, G., Weaver, B. A., Zhou, Z.

1 Dec 2024, In: The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 275, 2, 14p., 22

Research output: Article

The rate of extreme coronal line emitting galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and their relation to tidal disruption events

Callow, J., Graur, O., Clark, P., Palmese, A., Aguilar, J., Ahlen, S., BenZvi, S., Brooks, D., Claybaugh, T., Macorra, A. d. l., Doel, P., Forero-Romero, J. E., Gaztañaga, E., Gontcho, S. G. A., Lambert, A., Landriau, M., Meisner, A., Miquel, R., Moustakas, J., Nie, J., Poppett, C., Prada, F., Rezaie, M., Rossi, G., Sanchez, E., Silber, J. H., Tarlé, G., Weaver, B. A., Zhou, Z.

5 Nov 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 535, 1, p. 1095-1122

Research output: Article

Apophis: a new European space mission could get up close with a large asteroid that’s set to brush by Earth

Graur, O.

1 Nov 2024, In: The Conversation

Research output: Article

The Dark Energy Survey: Cosmology Results With ~1500 New High-redshift Type Ia Supernovae Using The Full 5-year Dataset

Collaboration, T. D. E. S., Abbott, T. M. C., Acevedo, M., Aguena, M., Alarcon, A., Allam, S., Alves, O., Amon, A., Andrade-Oliveira, F., Annis, J., Armstrong, P., Asorey, J., Avila, S., Bacon, D., Bassett, B., Bechtol, K., Bernardinelli, P. H., Bernstein, G. M., Bertin, E., Blazek, J., Bocquet, S., Brooks, D., Brout, D., Buckley-Geer, E., Burke, D. L., Camacho, H., Camilleri, R., Campos, A., Rosell, A. C., Carollo, D., Carr, A., Carretero, J., Castander, F. J., Cawthon, R., Chang, C., Chen, R., Choi, A., Conselice, C., Costanzi, M., Costa, L. N. d., Crocce, M., Frohmaier, C., Gaztanaga, E., Graur, O., Kelsey, L., Li, T. S., Nichol, R. C., Percival, W. J., Thomas, D., Vincenzi, M.

1 Oct 2024, In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. 973, 1, 20p., L14

Research output: Article

Kilonova Seekers: the GOTO project for real-time citizen science in time-domain astrophysics

Killestein, T. L., Kelsey, L., Wickens, E., Nuttall, L., Lyman, J., Krawczyk, C., Ackley, K., Dyer, M. J., Jiménez-Ibarra, F., Ulaczyk, K., O'Neill, D., Kumar, A., Steeghs, D., Galloway, D. K., Dhillon, V. S., O'Brien, P., Ramsay, G., Noysena, K., Kotak, R., Breton, R. P., Pallé, E., Pollacco, D., Awiphan, S., Belkin, S., Chote, P., Clark, P., Coppejans, D., Duffy, C., Eyles-Ferris, R., Godson, B., Gompertz, B., Graur, O., Irawati, P., Jarvis, D., Julakanti, Y., Kennedy, M. R., Kuncarayakti, H., Levan, A., Littlefair, S., Magee, M., Mandhai, S., Sánchez, D. M., Mattila, S., McCormac, J., Mullaney, J., Munday, J., Patel, M., Pursiainen, M., Rana, J., Sawangwit, U., Stanway, E., Starling, R., Warwick, B., Wiersema, K.

1 Sep 2024, In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 533, 2, p. 2113-2132

Research output: Article