As an experimentalist, I study collisions of nuclei at energies corresponding to approximately half the speed of light. In these collisions, we can create environments that resemble the first moments of the universe after the big bang. Properties of extra-terrestrial objects such as neutron stars can be obtained from studying collisions of a variety of nuclei with different compositions of protons and neutrons. One important research area of current interest is the density dependence of the symmetry energy, which governs the stability as well as other properties of neutron stars. Symmetry energy also determines the degree of stability in nuclei.

Recent advance in gravitational wave astronomy led to the discovery of the binary neutron star merger, GW170817, in August 2017. When two neutron stars are within a few hundreds of kilometer, they exert a tidal force (similar to the force the moon exerts on the ocean of the earth) to each other. By measuring the deformation of the neutron stars due to this tidal force, one can deduce how neutron star matter reacts to pressure, temperature and density. We aim to extract information from our experiments to be so stringent that the uncertainties will be smaller than the vertical width of the contours and can thus distinguish the two forms of predicted symmetry pressure.