Prof. Susmita Adhikari

The first gravitational wave events from the LIGO-Virgo collaboration have opened up a new observational window to the universe. The merging binary systems that produce gravitational waves are embedded in galaxies that trace cosmic structure formation. The evolution of stars in the galaxies that host these systems is tied to hierarchical structure formation, the rate at which galaxies form stars and therefore binaries depends on the history of structure and its environment. Current generation GW detectors are expected to find neutron star binaries with electromagnetic counterparts in the local universe and a much larger sample of BBHs and BNS without counterparts extending out to higher redshifts. The spatial and temporal distribution of these events will carry a wealth of information about the underlying population of binaries. In this talk I will describe how we can use the properties of host galaxies of these systems to learn about the underlying formation mechanisms of the binaries. I will also describe some recent work about what we learn about the host galaxies of these mergers from the population of sGRBs.