Institute for Advanced Study/Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

In the past couple of years the gravitational-wave detections enabled by the LIGO detectors have launched a new field in astrophysics allowing us to study compact object mergers involving pairs of black holes and neutron stars. I will discuss what current measurements of masses, spins, and event rates reveal about compact object formation and how we can use the rapidly growing set of discoveries to probe stellar and compact object astrophysics.