What can we learn from population synthesis and theory in the near-future Big Data Gravitational Wave Era*

One of the biggest questions in Gravitational Wave (GW) astronomy today is: “How do these sources form?” and “What can we learn from their GWs about the birth, lives and explosive deaths of massive stars?” New GW observing runs and next-generation detectors will rapidly provide data with ever-increasing precision and volume. However, on the theoretical side, we are limited in answering these questions due to the so-called “great GW progenitor uncertainty problem": uncertainties within the population synthesis modelling are so large, that learning about their progenitors seems completely out of reach. 

In this talk we will present our work on tackling this challenge. We will discuss areas within population synthesis models where we might start to learn about massive stars through cosmic time