Astrophysics with LIGO/Virgo Gravitational-wave Detections

by Prof. Chris Belczynski (The Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)

Wednesday 14 Apr 2021, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/530682073

LIGO/Virgo Collaboration has published 11 detections from the first two 
observational campaigns (O1/O2) and results from first half of the third 
campaign (O3) are also already available.

I will first discuss the landscape of O1/O2 detections and their 
implications for stellar evolutionary modeling. Broadly speaking the basic
observational properties of detected double black hole mergers are consistent 
with predictions of the classical isolated binary evolution of massive stars. 
These early detections constrain some aspects stellar physics that is 
unaccessible by electromagnetic observations.

On the other hand, the first results from O3 campaign seem to challenge 
classical binary evolution with black holes found in lower and upper mass 
gaps. These are regions in which black holes are not expected to form from stars, 
but rather form via dynamic interactions of stars in dense clusters. I will 
discuss these curious events in context of their most likely formation sites.

Belczynski_2021-04-14.mp4