TAPIR Seminar

Hybrid

In person: 370 Cahill -- Attendees joining in person must have a valid Caltech UID.

To Join via Zoom: https://caltech.zoom.us/j/89695722750

ABSTRACT:

The growing catalog of gravitational wave signals from compact object mergers has allowed us to probe the properties of black holes and neutron stars more precisely than ever before. In this talk, I will demonstrate what we can learn about the formation and evolution of compact objects and their electromagnetic counterparts with current and future gravitational-wave observations. With the current catalog of events detected by the LIGO and Virgo ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, I will present evidence for a correlation between the redshift and spin distributions of binary black holes and discuss its astrophysical implications. With joint observations of short gamma-ray bursts and binary neutron star mergers accessible in the next few years, I will describe a multimessenger method to constrain the jet geometry and shed light on the central engine powering these explosions. Finally, I will demonstrate how the strength of tidal coupling in double white dwarf systems can be constrained using observations obtained with the LISA space-based gravitational-wave detector in the next decade.