Princeton University Department of Physics Donald R. Hamilton Colloquium Series

The discovery of compact object mergers by LIGO has opened up a new window into the Universe’s most exotic objects, neutron stars and black holes. Maximizing the scientific return of this new window requires connecting gravitational wave detections to the wealth of electromagnetic data on similar sources. I will describe the remarkable progress in this direction with the first neutron stat merger detected in 2017, emphasizing the simple underlying physics behind these discoveries. I will also look ahead to some of the diversity that may be expected in the joint electromagnetic-gravitational wave sky.