Studying the Equation of State in the Post-Merger Phase of a Binary Neutron star Coalescence

The post-merger phase of a binary neutron star coalescence is a promising new laboratory for studying the dense-matter equation of state (EoS), which remains uncertain despite significant recent progress from multi-messenger observations of the inspiral of GW170817, X-ray constraints on neutron star radii, and laboratory and theoretical efforts. In this talk, I will provide an overview of current EoS constraints, and I will discuss some of the ways in which uncertainties in the EoS can influence the post-merger evolution of neutron star binaries. In particular, I will present a new set of neutron star merger simulations, which explore these uncertainties using a parametrized framework to calculate the microphysical EoS. I will discuss the imprint of systematically varying the nuclear symmetry energy on the post-merger properties. I will also present new quasi-universal relations between the post-merger gravitational waves and the properties of the neutron star EoS, which can be used, in tandem with inspiral observations, to simultaneously constrain both the characteristic radius and the slope of the neutron star mass-radius relation.