APEC Seminar (Astronomy - Particle Physics - Experimental Physics - Cosmology)

Speaker: Chris Belczynski (Warsaw U)
Title: The Astrophysics of BH-BH/NS-NS Mergers with LIGO/Virgo
Date (JST): Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 12:00 - 13:00
Place: Seminar Room A
Abstract: I will discuss the astrophysical importance of the recent LIGO/Virgo direct detections of gravitational-waves. Despite majority of the expectations, it was not neutron star mergers being detected first, but the series of exotic massive black hole mergers. I will describe the leading theories of the formation of such black hole systems.
I will also comment on a detection of NS-NS merger. This particular detection may provide striking constraints on binary evolution. Several astrophysical implications are beginning to emerge despite the fact that the exact origin of LIGO/Virgo sources is not yet known.