Physics & Engineering Physics Colloquium

Pedro Espino, Ph.D., FCRH ’12, presently a postdoctoral researcher at the Pennsylvania State University Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmo, will present “Neutron Stars as Ideal Physics Laboratories.”

The environments associated with neutron stars are unique sites with physical phenomena operating on many different energy and length scales. Neutron stars are ideal laboratories where we can test all of the fundamental interactions in nature, including (1) gravity: neutron stars are objects with immense gravity, and the merger of binary neutron stars has led to detections of gravitational waves; (2) electromagnetism: the magnetic fields produced in binary neutron star mergers are thought to be the strongest in the universe and are responsible for bright astronomical transients; (3) weak interactions: neutron stars are sites of high neutrino luminosity and neutrinos may play a crucial role in binary neutron star mergers; (4) strong interactions: it is possible that a deconfinement phase transition takes place in the densest regions of neutron stars and their mergers.

Espino will discuss numerical simulations in which each of these interactions plays a central role, as well as highlight some open questions in neutron star research.