Extreme Physics of Neutron Star Interiors

Date
May 14, 2025May 16, 2025
Location
407 Jadwin Hall

Details

Event Description

Organizers: Ashley Bransgrove (Princeton), Anirudh Prabhu (Princeton), Peter Rau (Columbia), Anatoly Spitkovsky (Princeton), Andrei Beloborodov (Columbia)

Neutron stars are prolific sources of broadband non-thermal electromagnetic emission. In recent years we have seen bright millisecond duration fast radio bursts and giant flares from magnetars, X-ray hot spots on millisecond pulsars, and gravitational waves from neutron star mergers. Simultaneously, advances in computational techniques have revolutionized our understanding of electromagnetic emission from neutron star magnetospheres. However, much remains unknown about neutron star interiors, where the physics of matter at super-nuclear densities and ultra-strong magnetic fields are inaccessible to terrestrial experiments. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together a multidisciplinary group of experts to discuss new ways of probing the physics of neutron star interiors, while leveraging our understanding of magnetospheric physics and electromagnetic emission. Some of the specific phenomena that will be discussed are:

  • Observations and theory of extreme emission from neutron stars, including insights from surface X-ray emission, cooling, gravitational waves, magnetar flares and seismology, fast radio bursts, and pulsars. 
  • The strong magnetic fields that thread neutron star interiors, how they form and evolve, and associated instabilities which lead to magnetar bursts and giant flares. 
  • Elasticity and rheology of magnetized solids and liquid crystals at extreme pressure, including Coulomb crystals and nuclear pasta. 
  • Hadronic superfluids: their dynamics, associated interacting arrays of quantized vortex lines and flux tubes, how superfluidity modifies thermodynamic and transport properties, and how proton superconductivity affects magnetic field evolution.
  • Exotic phases of matter in neutron star interiors and possible beyond Standard Model particles produced in neutron star cores.

One day of the workshop will focus on observational constraints and extreme emission of neutron stars, one day on dense matter microphysics, and one day on global magnetic field formation and evolution modeling. The daily schedule will consist of presentations followed by extended group discussions. 

Sponsor
PCTS