SEMINAR: Colloquium at ICRAR

Neutron stars are of great interest to nuclear physicists, because the state of matter in their cores (a few times nuclear density, but very sub-relativistic temperatures) cannot be probed directly in terrestrial laboratories. Possibilities for this matter range from almost entirely nucleonic to more exotic prospects such as quark matter or kaon condensates. There are thus many efforts to constrain the equation of state of cold supranuclear matter via observations of the masses, radii, and even temperatures of neutron stars. Currently, however, the most potentially restrictive of these observations are intertwined with significant systematic uncertainties, hence new methods are needed. Ground-based gravitational wave observations of coalescing neutron stars will yield powerful new probes of these systems, by giving us mass information about dozens of neutron stars per year and possible allowing precise radius measurements for several per year. I will give an overview of the current constraints on high-density matter and explore the possibilities enabled by future gravitational wave detections, including a discussion of the most important gravitational wave frequencies for such constraints.