ITC Special Seminar: Bing Zhang (UNLV)

Date: 

Thursday, August 24, 2017, 11:00am to 12:00pm

Location: 

Pratt

"Charged compact star mergers, fast radio bursts, and relativistic astronomy"

Abstract: I will discuss three topics. First, I will discuss the effect of the charge of a compact object in binary compact star mergers (BH-BH, NS-BH & NS-NS) and argue that a likely outcome is a short duration electromagnetic counterpart (with slight delay) coinciding with the gravitational wave chirp signal, either in the form of a short GRB if the charge is large enough, or more likely in the form of a fast radio burst (FRB). Next, I will provide some personal views on the origin of mysterious FRBs. Finally, I will discuss the relativistic effects for a trans-relativistic camera (as envisaged in the StarShot project) and discuss the unique sciences one may do with such a camera.