Seppo Mattila profile picture
Seppo
Mattila
Professor, Tuorla Observatory

Contact

+358 29 450 4518
+358 50 412 5859
Vesilinnantie 5
20500
Turku

Links

ORCID

Biography

I received my PhD degree from Imperial College, Univ. of London in 2002. After this I held postdoctoral positions at Stockholm University, Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) and Queen's University Belfast. I moved back to Finland in 2007 with an Academy of Finland Research Fellowship to work at Tuorla Observatory at University of Turku. Between 2012 and 2015 I worked at the Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA) as a University Researcher. I was appointed as a Professor of Astronomy at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University of Turku in 2015. After 2010 I have made extended research visits to Stockholm University (18 months) and to University of Cambridge, UK (10 months). I have been the Finnish delegate in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Council since 2020 and in the International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos and Teide observatories since 2019. Since 2022 I have also served as the President of the CCI. I am currently also the President of the Finnish National Committee for Astronomy and a member of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) Council and the board of FINCA, and a vice member of the board of the Univ. of Turku Faculty of Science. In 2022 I was invited as a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

Teaching

I have taught several courses in astronomy, astrophysics and signal and image processing at the Univ. of Turku. In  particular, I initiated two new observational astronomy courses currently offered at national level for students from Turku, Helsinki, Oulu and the Aalto University. These courses offer hands-on experience on the use of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) remotely from Univ. of Turku (Observational Techniques Using the Nordic Optical Telescope) and on the science exploitation of data from the European Southern Observatory (ESO; Data Processing Techniques for Astronomy with ESO Instrumentation). Currently I teach also the BSc course on observational astronomy and the MSc courses Spectroscopic Diagnostics in Astrophysics and Signal and Image Processing. In my teaching I always try to make use of examples from the latest research in order to offer a motivating learning experience for the students.

Research

​​​​​​My main research interests focus on observational work on extragalactic astrophysical transients, including supernovae, tidal disruption events, and kilonovae. For more details on my research and information on the research group please see https://sites.utu.fi/sne/. For a complete list of my refereed journal papers see ADS (in chronological order) or ADS (ordered by number of citations).

Selected recent papers:

Kool et al. (incl. Mattila) 2023, Nature: A radio-detected type Ia supernova with helium-rich circumstellar material

Pasham et al. (incl. Mattila) 2023, Nature Astronomy: The Birth of a Relativistic Jet Following the Disruption of a Star by a Cosmological Black Hole

Nagao, Mattila et al. 2023, A&A: Spectropolarimetry of Type II supernovae. I. Sample, observational data, and interstellar polarization

Reynolds, Mattila et al. 2022, A&A: Energetic nuclear transients in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies

Perez-Torres, Mattila et al. 2021, The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review: Star formation and nuclear activity in luminous infrared galaxies: An infrared through radio review

Kool, Reynolds, Mattila et al. 2020, MNRAS: AT2017gbl: a dust obscured TDE candidate in a luminous infrared galaxy

Ackley et al. (incl. Mattila) 2020, A&A: Observational constraints on the optical and near-infrared emission from the neutron star-black hole binary merger S190814bv

Reynolds, Fraser, Mattila et al. 2020, MNRAS: SN 2016gsd: An unusually luminous and linear type II supernova with high velocities

Mattila et al. 2018, Science: A dust-enshrouded tidal disruption event with a resolved radio jet in a galaxy merger​

Smartt et al. (incl. Mattila) 2017, Nature: A kilonova as the electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational-wave source​

Abbott et al. (imcl. Mattila) 2017, ApJ: Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger

Kankare, Kotak, Mattila et al. 2017, Nature Astronomy: A population of highly energetic transient events in the centres of active galaxies

Kangas, Blagorodnova, Mattila et al. 2017, MNRAS: Gaia 16apd - a link between fast- and slowly-declining superluminous supernovae

Kangas, Portinari, Mattila et al. 2017, A&A: Core-collapse supernova progenitor constraints using the spatial distribution of massive stars in local galaxies

Publications

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PESSTO spectroscopic classification of optical transients #8320 (2015)

Harmanen J., Kuncarayakti H., Mattila S., Kangas T., Botticella M. T., Fraser M., Inserra C., Kankare E., Maguire K., Smartt S. J., Smith K. W., Sullivan M., Valenti S., Yaron O., Young D., Manulis I., Wright D., Chambers K., Flewelling H., Huber M., Magnier E., Tonry J., Waters C., Wainscoat R. J., Wyrzykowski L.
(Julkaistu kehittämis- tai tutkimusraportti taikka -selvitys (D4))

Supernova 2014eg in ESO 154-G10 (2015)

Kangas T., Mattila S., Kankare E., Dimitriadis G., Smith M., Firth R., Galbany L., Inserra C., Maguire K., Smartt S. J., Smith K. W., Sullivan M., Valenti S., Yaron O., Young D., Manulis I., Baltay C., Ellman N., Hadjiyska E., McKinnon R., Rabinowitz D., Walker E. S., Rostami S., Feindt U., Kowalski M., Nugent P., Wyrzykowski L.
(Artikkeli ammatillisessa kokoomateoksessa (D2))

PESSTO spectroscopic classification of optical transients #8292 (2015)

Harmanen J., Dennefeld M., Mattila S., Kangas T., Cartier R., Chen T.-W., Inserra C., Kankare E., Maguire K., Smartt S. J., Smith K. W., Sullivan M., Valenti S., Yaron O., Young D., Manulis I., Wyrzykowski L.
(Julkaistu kehittämis- tai tutkimusraportti taikka -selvitys (D4))

PESSTO spectroscopic classification of optical transients #8296 (2015)

Kangas T., Dennefeld M., Harmanen J., Mattila S., Cartier R., Chen T.-. W., Inserra C., Fraser M., Kankare E., Maguire K., Smartt S. J., Smith K. W., Sullivan M., Valenti S., Yaron O., Young D., Manulis I., Baltay C., Ellman N., Hadjiyska E., McKinnon R., Rabinowitz D., Rostami S., Feindt U., Kowalski M., Nugent P., Wright D., Chambers K., Flewelling H., Huber M., Magnier E., Tonry J., Waters C., Wainscoat R. J., Wyrzykowski L.
(Julkaistu kehittämis- tai tutkimusraportti taikka -selvitys (D4))

The destruction of the circumstellar ring of SN 1987A (2015)

Astrophysical Journal Letters
Fransson C, Larsson J, Migotto K, Pesce D, Challis P, Chevalier RA, France K, Kirshner RP, Leibundgut B, Lundqvist P, McCray R, Spyromilio J, Taddia F, Jerkstrand A, Mattila S, Smith N, Sollerman J, Wheeler JC, Crotts A, Garnavich P, Heng K, Lawrence SS, Panagia N, Pun CSJ, Sonneborn G, Sugerman B
(Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tai data-artikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä (A1))

Core-collapse and Type Ia supernovae with the SKA (2015)

Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array (AASKA14), POS Proceedings of Science
Perez-Torres M., Alberdi A., Beswick R. J., Lundqvist P., Herrero-Illana R., Romero-Cañizales C., Ryder S., della Valle M., Conway J., Marcaide J. M., Mattila S., Murphy T., Ros E.
(Vertaisarvioitu artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa (A4))

Toward characterization of the type IIP supernova progenitor population: a statistical sample of light curves from Pan-STARRS1 (2015)

Astrophysical Journal
N. E. Sanders, A. M. Soderberg, S. Gezari, M. Betancourt, R. Chornock, E. Berger, R. J. Foley, P. Challis, M. Drout, R. P. Kirshner, R. Lunnan, G. H. Marion, R. Margutti, R. McKinnon, D. Milisavljevic, G. Narayan, A. Rest, E. Kankare, S. Mattila, S. J. Smartt, M. E. Huber, W. S. Burgett, P. W. Draper, K. W. Hodapp, N. Kaiser, R. P. Kudritzki, E. A. Magnier, N. Metcalfe, J. S. Morgan, P. A. Price, J. L. Tonry, R. J. Wainscoat, C. Waters
(Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tai data-artikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä (A1))

Selecting superluminous supernovae in faint galaxies from the first year of the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey (2015)

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
McCrum M., Smartt S. J., Rest A., Smith K., Kotak R., Rodney S. A., Young D. R., Chornock R., Berger E., Foley R. J., Fraser M., Wright D., Scolnic D., Tonry J. L., Urata Y., Huang K., Pastorello A., Botticella M. T., Valenti S., Mattila S., Kankare E., Farrow D. J., Huber M. E., Stubbs C. W., Kirshner R. P., Bresolin F., Burgett W. S., Chambers K. C., Draper P. W., Flewelling H., Jedicke R., Kaiser N., Magnier E. A., Metcalfe N., Morgan J. S., Price P. A., Sweeney W., Wainscoat R. J., Waters C.
(Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tai data-artikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä (A1))
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