IAU G2 online conference series - Jakub Klencki (ESO)

Title: Can gravitational-wave astronomy be the renaissance of stellar astrophysics?
Abstract: Within the next 10-20 years, merging pairs of stellar black holes and neutron stars detected in gravitational waves (GW) will arguably become the best measured state in the evolution of massive stars across entire Cosmic History. We are now faced with the 'Interpretation Challenge' of how to understand the observed population and link them to the progenitor stars and galaxies. Many formation channels have been proposed across various environments (isolated, dynamical, gas-rich) and from all the redshifts. This paints an exciting but also a complex picture, with rather few constraints to limit the creativity of modelers. I will go over how binary evolution and stellar interactions may contribute to the GW landscape and discuss the role of stellar surveys in refining the models.