Joint GWSC/UniGe/EPFL colloquium
Prof. Selma E. de Mink
Stellar progenitors of gravitational wave sources

Arguably,  the most exciting recent discovery in our field is the direct detection of gravitational waves.  Not only the detection itself, but also the inferred parameters of the first event caused consternation.  With surprisingly high masses, about thirty solar masses each, the two incoming black holes were unlike any of the black holes known so far. By now we have around a hundred detections and we are anticipating next generation detectors that will be able to probe all mergers out to redshifts of 10 and beyond. We already start to see the first hints of the properties of the population.  These detections are giving us an unprecedented window on the end point of massive stars. This seminar will focus on massive stars, whose collapsing cores have given rise to the black holes that are now being detected through gravitational waves.  I will try to give an introduction into the currently ongoing debate. What have the detections taught us already? What are we hoping for in the coming years?