Prasad R

Various compact stars exist in our cosmos, including white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. Neutron stars, in particular, contain one to two solar masses in a radius of just ~15 km, making them the densest objects in the universe. They also exhibit powerful magnetic fields (ranging from 10^9 to 10^15 Gauss). These extreme conditions make them natural laboratories for probing dense matter, phase transitions, and exotic dynamical phenomena. I am exploring these aspects, with a focus on their potential signatures in gravitational waves. I am also interested in various aspects of black hole physics.

Gravitational waves (GWs) are ripples in space-time. It was proposed by Albert Einstein in 1916, and the first observation came up in LIGO in 2015. Stars emit these ripples significantly in some dynamical and catastrophic events. These emissions could be chirping in nature, burst-type (short-duration), or continuous-type (long-duration). The GW detectors on Earth detect these arriving waves and provide us a way to probe the isolated compact stars, their interaction in binaries, and the dominant physical processes at play in them. My research deals with modeling the GW emissions from compact star systems and their populations.  (GIF Source : WolframAlpha)