Science2Go | Revealing Cosmic Mysteries through Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

Neutron stars are among the most compact and fascinating objects in the Universe, and the detection of gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals from the merger of two neutron stars in 2017 has been a revolution. This breakthrough observation enabled studies about the history of our cosmos, the formation of heavy elements, e.g., gold or platinum, and the physics on subatomic scales.

Essential for the interpretation of all these observations are reliable, theoretical models that can be compared with observational data. We show how these models can be developed and used to enable multi-messenger studies of merging neutron stars. Interestingly, such studies reveal amazing similarities between the macroscopic collisions of neutron stars in our Universe and heavy-ion collisions in modern particle colliders.

We will conclude by giving an outlook of what we can expect to learn from the rising field of gravitational-wave astronomy.