Special Astrophysics Colloquia

Observing neutron stars with gravitational-wave astronomy

Jocelyn Read

Cal State Fullerton

The gravitational-wave observatories of LIGO and Virgo have opened a new field of transient astronomy. The first and nearest signal from merging neutron stars, GW170817, guided astronomical partners' observations of the associated gamma ray burst, kilonova, and aftermath. We also used the gravitational-wave data itself to constrain the source system's properties and the equation of state of dense matter in neutron stars. More distant sources may primarily tell us about the source masses, but heavy neutron-star merger GW190425 and the neutron-star/black-hole mergers GW200105 and GW200115 have already revealed that gravitational-wave sources are unlike binaries previously observed in our Galaxy. Together, our gravitational-wave observations are informing our understanding of dense matter and stellar evolution. In this talk, I will outline prospects of learning about neutron stars in the current Advanced-detector era. I will discuss methods being developed to explore matter and mass properties for LIGO/Virgo neutron stars and show how current results fit with other neutron-star observations. Finally, I will extrapolate to the astronomical potential of next-generation ground-based observatories like Cosmic Explorer.