Speaker: David Radice (Penn State) 

Hosts: Srimoyee Sen and Jake Simon

Title: Probing Dense Matter with Neutron Star Mergers

Abstract: Neutron star mergers are Nature's ultimate supercolliders, where two massive objects—each containing around 10^58 nucleons—collide at a quarter of the speed of light. These cosmic events produce gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals, offering a unique opportunity to probe the properties of matter under extreme conditions. In this talk, I will present our group's efforts to model neutron star mergers from first principles, using large-scale supercomputing simulations. I will discuss our current understanding of these mergers, based on both observational data and simulation results, and how we are using these to constrain the behavior of dense matter. Lastly, I will explore the future potential of next-generation gravitational-wave experiments and the theoretical challenges that must be addressed to unlock their full scientific potential.