Astronomy has entered a “multimessenger” era: one that combines electromagnetic “sight” with gravitational “touch.” This dissertation serves as a roadmap of the multimessenger frontier, to join the littered environments of dead and dying starswith their unclear origins. To uncover stars’ innermost secrets, we explore rare, transient glimpses into single, double,...
The most promising probe into compact binary formation and evolution will be the populations resolved by both gravitational wave (GW) and electromagnetic (EM) observatories. As with any observation, theoretical models must be characterized to gain a fuller understanding of the underlying physics governing the observed population. Investigation of these models...