this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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Can someone explain this part: "Such mergers are directly caused by gravitational waves.".
I would've described it the prize way around, that only the merger of neuron stars provide enough gravitational energy to result in measurable gravitational waves - but this article claims that it's the other way around...?
With Newtonian physics if you have two neutron stars orbiting each other they would just continue orbiting forever. With general relativity, the orbiting neutron stars shed energy by sending out gravitational waves. Losing energy they get closer and closer and then merge.
I think it's just poor wording on their part.
But it's in the headline as well - that there should be a cause by the waves themselves - or perhaps I'm over reading the marketing side of science articles once more!
The headline is referring to the fact that iodine and bromine are products of neutron star collisions, it is just really bad writing as often happens with science reporting. The original paper is more clear, probably should've just linked to it in the first place https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03593
That makes sense, thanks for the link! Will give it a read later :)