Speaker
Description
The recent detection of gravitational waves (GW) by the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration opened a new era of gravitational astronomy with an unavoidable impact on theoretical models of galaxy formation and evolution. The astrophysical nature and origin of compact objects generating GW events are in fact deeply connected with the property of the galactic environment in which their stellar progenitors form, while their statistical relevance strictly depends on the progress of cosmic star formation. In this talk I will introduce recent semi-analytic and hydrodynamical simulations taking advantage from the emerging statistics of GW events already provided by LIGO/VIRGO. Results of recent investigations focusing on the high redshift Universe will be also introduced to show how GW signals originating from massive black hole binary mergers can shed some light on star forming galaxies in the epoch of cosmic Reionizaton.
