Colliding neutron stars and their remnants

For his research project, 'InspiReM', Sebastiano Bernuzzi is receiving a Consolidator Grant. Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena) - They are among the most extreme and most complex events in the universe: collisions of neutron stars. When two of these highly compact and massive celestial bodies merge, space-time becomes highly distorted and matter reaches densities and temperatures that cannot be reproduced in any laboratory experiment. In the process, high-energy radiation and matter are hurled into space. The collision is so violent that it can be observed from Earth - even over millions of light years - as both gravitational waves and light. "Such events are unique astrophysical laboratories," says Prof. Sebastiano Bernuzzi of Friedrich Schiller University Jena. The 40-year-old researcher and his team from the Institute for Theoretical Physics are developing theoretical models with which the dynamics of such cosmic collisions can be understood and data observed can be explained.