Extreme explosions: supernovae, hypernovae, magnetars, and other unusual cosmic blasts

880-01 pt. II. A walk across the rooftops. 3. Stellar evolution at the summit of the main sequence : Looking deeper into the controversy ; A problem with wolves ; The Humphrey-Davidson limit ; Luminous and violent blue variables ; Evolutionary paths of the most massive stars ; Type IIn supernovae ; Explaining type IIn properties ; Catching the wave ; From imposter to supernova ; Direct detonation of LBVs ; Slow blow: the case of supernova SN 2008iy ; The impact of collisions (no pun intended!) 4. Collapsars, hypernovae and long gamma ray bursts : From star wars to star death ; Beppo-SAX to the rescue ; Of fireballs and jets ; A best fit: the collapsar model ; Hypernovae and hyperbolae ; Reconstructing the supernova-GRB connection ; Supernova: or supranova? ; XRFs and type Ibc supernovae ; SN 2010jp: the first jet-powered type II supernova 5. Death by fallback : The mystery of Cygnus X-1 ; Controversial supernovae ; Populations 6. The formation of massive stars by collision and their fate : A lack of interpersonal skills: harassment 7. Electron-capture supernovae : Supernova or imposter? ; The troubling fates of intermediate mass stars ; Limiting factors ; Post main sequence evolution ; The Cassino da Urca ; Many roads lead to Rome ; Did the progenitor of SN 2008S spend too much time at the roulette table? ; SN 2009md: a faint type IIP supernova with a troubling origin ; A coda from the distant past: type I.5 supernovae 8. Ultra-luminous Type IIn supernovae : Taking the pulse ; A letal pulse: SN 2006gy and 2006tf as pulsational pair-instability supernovae ; SN 2008es: an ultra-luminous type II-L supernova ; A deadly couple embrace: was SN 2007bi the first pair instability supernova? ; Was pair instability a common cause of death in the early universe? 9. The magnetar model for ultra-luminous supernovae : The magnetar model ; SN 2006aj and the x-ray flashes 10. The mysterious SN 2005ap and luminous blue flashes : SN 2005ap ; Arrival of the white knights ; The PPI model ; The magnetar model ; The buried GRB model ; Are these blue explosions pair-instability events? ; Pan-STARRS events ; Can we tie up all the loose ends?

pt. III. Thermonuclear supernovae. 11. Hypotheses and an oxymoron : What astronomers know ; What astronomers think they know ; What astronomers don't know ; Mechanisms and scenarios ; The single-degenerate scenario ; More problems ; A precious few ; Double-degenerate models ; The explosion ; SN 2011fe: a defining type Ia supernova 12. Are there super-Chandrasekhar supernovae? : Type Ia supernovae: a reprise ; SN 1991T ; SN 2003fg: too bright for its own good? ; Loneliness in a crowd 13. The good, the bad and the ugly thermonuclear supernovae : R corona borealis: born again stars ; Mergers of more massive white dwarf stars ; AM CVn systems ; Type .Ia supernovae: descendants of AM CVn binaries? ; Record breaking type .Ia supernova or something else? ; Do some type Ia supernovae explode without detonation? ; SN 2008ha: a cousin of Sn 2005hk? ; PTF 09dav: something else? ; Sn 2005E: Lex Parsimoniae

pt. IV. In flagrante delicto. 14. The mysterious case of V838 Monocerotis and the red novae : V838 Moncerotis ; V4332 Sagittarii ; A stellar merger caught in the act ; M85's red nova ; The case of the optical transient NGC 300 OT ; Once red, now blue ; What do these collisions tell us about stellar eruptions? ; The great eruption of Eta Carinae: a reprise

15. Between Scylla and Charybdis : Type IIa? ; What might the new scheme be based upon?