50 years discovery of pulsars – precise probes of space, time and matter under extreme conditions
Seminars
Laboratory seminar
Date and Time: Thursday, 26 October 2017, at 3:00 PM
Venue: Blokhintsev Hall (4th floor), Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics
Seminar topic: «50 years discovery of pulsars – precise probes of space, time and matter under extreme conditions»
Speaker: David Blaschke (JINR Dubna, University of Wroclaw, Poland, NRNU (MEPhI) Moscow)
Abstract:
I give an introduction to the fantastic properties of pulsars, cosmic “lighthouses” that were discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell, a young PhD student at that time, by studying signals obtained from a newly constructed radio telescope.
Soon after this discovery it became clear that these regular radio signals came from fastly rotating neutron stars, objects that were anticipated by Lev Landau even before the discovery of the neutron in 1932 and described as possible remnants of supernova explosions by Baade and Zwicky in 1934.
Meanwhile more than 2000 pulsars are known and in this lecture I will describe some of them which have most remarkable properties that allow us to measure the structure of space-time in our cosmic neighborhood and to better understand the matter under extreme conditions of high densities and strong fields in their interiors. Particular attention will be devoted to the recent discovery of a kilonova that emerged from the merger of two neutron stars and was seen by the advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors as GW170817 and in all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The physical conditions of density and temperature in such events we shall recreate for short moments of time in heavy-ion collision experiments like the one planned at the NICA facility.