Speaker
Description
Binary neutron stars (BNS) are prime sources for multi-messenger astronomy, linking gravitational-wave signals from their mergers to high-energy electromagnetic counterparts such as kilonovae.
Although the number of currently observed merging systems remains limited, the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors, such as the Einstein Telescope, is expected to dramatically increase the number of detected events and provide access to a much larger extragalactic BNS population.
Population synthesis codes offer a powerful framework to study these populations. However, the large number of physical processes involved, each characterized by uncertain parameters, introduces significant degeneracies, making the interpretation of the predicted populations and their evolution particularly challenging.
In this talk, I will present a systematic exploration of the key parameters governing BNS formation. I will describe a methodology developed to analyze large ensembles of synthetic populations and to identify the dominant formation channels. I will then discuss how variations in these parameters affect BNS formation and their expected merger rates, and how different population synthesis models can be confronted with current LVK data and future observations from the Einstein Telescope.