Collisions of Neutron Stars and Black Holes

Binaries consisting of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole, will eventually merge due to orbital decay through the emission of gravitational radiation. The mergers themselves release vast amounts of gravitational potential energy, which is thought in some cases to lead to the production of short-duration gamma-ray bursts. They also expel highly radioactive neutron-rich nuclei, which should decay to form the stable r-process elements (such as gold and platinum), while powering an explosion known as a kilonova.
Finally, these systems, as they merge, are the most promising candidates for the direct detection of gravitational waves with upcoming facilities. Thus merging compact binaries lie at the intersection of several critical, exciting, but still very poorly understood fields of astrophysics. Indeed, the first observation of a kilonova was only made (led by Leicester) in 2013, while the first operation of the advanced gravitational wave detectors has only just started.
The project would involve exploring the electromagnetic characteristics of short-duration GRBs and kilonovae, to better understand their population properties and look for them in coincidence with gravitational wave detections. This is important to establish the rates of systems that can produce detectable gravitational wave events, and to quantify the role of compact binary mergers in r-process production.