Astrophysics Seminar

Gravitational Waves (GWs) are among the most ubiquitous predictions of Einstein's General Relativity which was postulated over a century ago. Their continuous detection by the worldwide network of detectors since 2015 has now firmly cemented their existence and ushered in the age of GW astronomy. This is so because GWs are known to carry important signatures of their origins. These signatures could either be about the nature of the geometry through which the GW propagates or about the nature of matter which source the GWs. Additionally, propagating GWs are rarely affected by foregrounds if ever, which makes the prospect of GW-astronomy even more exciting.

In this talk, the speaker will outline two areas where GWs can be of help in understanding new physics. In particular, the dependencies of GWs on source geometry and composition will be exploited to compute ubiquitous signatures. The first among them would be to test a class of GR disobeying 'exotic' objects (known as area quantised black holes) and compute their signatures. The speaker will demonstrate that although interesting, these objects suffer pathologies which greatly diminish their prospects. The second would be to test Equations of State (EoS) of Neutron Star (NS) matter. More specifically, the signature of Phase Transition in NS matter will be demonstrated, and a mock data will be analysed to see if PTs can be resolved given the sensitivity of future GW detectors.