Speaker
Selma de Mink
(Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
Description
The direct detection of gravitational waves has triggered excitement from physicist, astrophysicists and general public alike. The first event and many that followed originated from surprisingly heavy systems, with typical masses of 30-45 solar masses, well in excess of the masses of black holes known in X-ray binary systems. How did heavy pairs of Black holes form? What do these measurements tell us about the massive stars that were their progenitors? In this talk I will try to give a taste of the excitement and rapidly developing ideas and new questions about the formation of Gravitational Wave sources and the stars they originate from and what we hope to learn in the near future with next generation detectors.
Primary author
Selma de Mink
(Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics)
