The Landscape of Relativistic Stellar Explosions

This thesis reports the discovery of relativistic stellar explosions outside of the gamma ray band, using optical time domain surveys. It is well known that some massive stars end their lives with the formation of a compact object (a neutron star or black hole) that launches a relativistic jet detectable from earth as a burst of gamma rays. It has long been suspected, however, that gamma ray bursts are only the tip of the iceberg in a broad landscape of relativistic explosions, and so the results presented in this thesis represent a major breakthrough. Highlights of this thesis include: characterization of the first major new class of relativistic explosions in a decade; the discovery of abrupt end-of-life mass-loss in a surprisingly diverse range of stars; and the routine discovery of afterglow emission and several events that may represent baryonically dirty jets or jets viewed slightly off axis. These discoveries necessitated the solution of difficult technical challenges such as the identification of rare and fleeting “needles” in a vast haystack of time-varying phenomena in the night sky, and responding to discoveries within hours to obtain data across the electromagnetic spectrum from X-rays to radio wavelengths.