What Gravitational Waves can tell us about Fundamental Physics

 Neutron stars are effectively cosmic laboratories to study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, far beyond the reach of present terrestrial nuclear or high energy experiments. It is conjectured that exotic particles such as strange baryons or deconfined quark matter may appear in the ultra-high density environment of the neutron star interior, and this could in turn affect their observable properties. With the recent detection of Gravitational Waves from binary mergers of neutron stars, a new window has opened up, complementary to conventional multi-wavelength electromagnetic observations. Gravitational waves contain information about the interior composition of neutron stars and their detection can provide important constraints on the theories of dense matter. In this talk I will discuss some of our recent investigations on the implications of the state-of-the-art multi-messenger observations on our understanding of nuclear and particle physics.