ITC Special Seminar - Jim Lattimer (Stonybrook)

Date: 

Monday, February 6, 2017, 1:30pm to 2:30pm

Location: 

Pratt

Taking the Measure of Neutron Stars

 

Neutron stars are laboratories for understanding physics under extreme
conditions, including the nature of the nucleon-nucleon interaction
and the equation of state of dense matter and the location of the
quark-hadron transition.  One of the most important discoveries of the
last few years has been the discovery of neutron stars in the vicinity
of 2 solar masses. Coupled with the assumptions that general
relativity and causality are valid, the near-certainty that neutron
stars have crusts, nuclear structure measurements, and recent
theoretical advances in the understanding of pure neutron matter,
reasonably tight constraints on neutron star have been achieved.  This
includes significant bounds on their radii, moments of inertia,
binding energies and tidal deformabilities.  In parallel, there have
also been advances in using X-ray observations to confront these
bounds.  Additional measurements in X-rays, radio, neutrinos, and
gravitational waves are on the near horizon.