John Bromell’s Comps Presentation
Monday, March 7th
8:30 am in Olin 101
Neutron Stars
Neutron stars are highly dense compact stars. Every stellar object must maintain equilibrium with gravity; something has to hold it up against gravitational pressure. Neutron stars are too dense and too cool to be held up by gas pressure, radiation pressure, or electron degeneracy pressure. Therefore, they must be held up by neutron degeneracy pressure. We can use the equation of state of electron-degenerate matter to calculate the Chandrasekhar Limit, the mass limit of white dwarf stars. However, physicists are still searching for an appropriate equation of state for neutron-degenerate matter. Finding this equation of state will allow us to constrain the mass of neutron stars, as well as explain some of their properties, such as “glitches” in their rotational period or the nature of matter at their cores. Theorists, experimentalists, and astronomers are all working together to find this equation of state.