Colloquium - Neutron-star Mergers from LIGO and Virgo to Cosmic Explorer with Jocelyn Read

Speaker

Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations have established a new field of transient astronomy. Compact binary mergers reveal the remnants of stellar evolution and supernovae in merging binary systems, they constrain event rates and astrophysical environments for heavy-element nucleosynthesis, and they are illuminating the dense matter dynamics inside the cores of merging neutron stars. In this talk, I will focus on the imprint of dense matter on gravitational waves, which is modeled using both semi-analytic theory and numerical simulation. I will show how LIGO/Virgo observations constrain the neutron star equation of state and extrapolate to the science potential of future observations in proposed next-generation observatories like Cosmic Explorer.  I’ll discuss how modeling uncertainties will need to be addressed in gravitational-wave inference to realize this potential, and outline how waveform corrections can be recovered and interpreted.