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12-11-2009
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Today's colloquium: Stars under stress - new results from neutron star seismology (Anna L. Watts, University of Amsterdam)

Submitter: Stefanie Muehle
Description: Neutron stars have densities so high that nuclei, and even neutrons, may dissolve to form exotic states of matter such as a quark-gluon plasma. The high densities also allow neutron stars to sustain magnetic fields up to ten orders of magnitude higher than those we can create in terrestrial facilities, in regimes where new electromagnetic processes are expected. The discovery of seismic activity in ultra-magnetized neutron stars (magnetars) is giving us a new way of studying these extremes of fundamental physics. The magnetic field in magnetars is strong enough to stress and break the stellar crust, triggering starquakes, jumps in spin rate, and bright gamma-ray flares. I will present some of the latest developments in this field, including unexpected results on the neutron star crust, and new discoveries from the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor on the Fermi Space Telescope.

The figure shows a scale of magnetic fields and points out the region where neutron stars are most important, compared to what we can measure within our own solar system.
Copyright: A.L. Watts
 
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