Physics
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Fachbereich Physik, Institut für Kernphysik
The study of Binary Neutron Star (BNS) mergers has been at the forefront of research for decades, and has spiked following the first detection of a 3 coincident signal of gravitational waves, a gamma-ray burst and a kilonova from such an event. The general, macroscopic dynamics of BNS systems is reasonably well understood from the early inspiral phase to the late post merger. Now the challenge is to reduce uncertainties due to the microphysical description of these systems. Three broad points of uncertainty are: -the role of neutrinos on the evolution of the binary, and how to efficiently describe them; -the details of the equation of state at high densities; -the influence of the r-process reactions on the ejected matter evolution. All of these points has been investigated before, yet many obstacles, physical and numerical, have so far prevented the formation of a consensus beyond the broad-brush picture. We intend to make use of this allocation to tackle these obstacles.