Nuclear Astrophysics in the Multimessenger Era: A Partnership Made in Heaven

Abstract

On August 17, 2017 the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected for the first time gravitational waves from the binary merger of two neutron stars (GW170817). Unlike the merger of two black holes, the associated electromagnetic radiation was also detected by a host of telescopes operating over a wide range of frequencies---opening a brand new era of multimessenger astronomy. This historical detection is providing fundamental new insights into the astrophysical site for the r-process and on the nature of dense matter. In this contribution we examine the impact of GW170817 on the equation of state of neutron rich matter, particularly on the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Limits on the tidal polarizability extracted from GW170817 seem to suggest that the symmetry energy is soft, thereby excluding models that predict overly large stellar radii.