PHYSICS COLLOQUIUM

Time: May 27, 4PM 2011
Place: S11

What are neutron stars made of?

Dr. Duncan Galloway
School of Physics
Monash University

Substantial uncertainty remains about the properties of matter at and above densities reached in the atomic nucleus. This uncertainty can largely be attributed to the inaccessibility of such conditions in laboratory-based experiments. Similarly, experimental tests of gravity have been necessarily limited to small space-time curvatures such as are found in our own solar system. Neutron stars, the dense remnants of supernova explosions in medium-sized stars, may serve as (rather remote and inaccessible) “laboratories” in which to investigate both these regimes. Space-based observational studies of explosive burning on these extreme objects may lead to measurements of their properties, and hence constraints on the conditions of nuclear-density matter, as well as tests of strong gravity. These systems are also key candidates for the first detection of gravitational waves, expected within the next decade.