The Physics of Neutron Stars

By J. Lattimer, M. Prakash. Science, 2004

981 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Neutron stars are some of the densest manifestations of massive objects in the universe. They are ideal astrophysical laboratories for testing theories of dense matter physics and provide connections among nuclear physics, particle physics, and astrophysics. Neutron stars may exhibit conditions and phenomena not observed elsewhere, such as hyperon-dominated matter, deconfined quark matter, superfluidity and superconductivity with critical temperatures near 1010 kelvin, opaqueness to neutrinos, and magnetic fields in excess of 1013 Gauss. Here, we describe the formation, structure, internal composition, and evolution of neutron stars. Observations that include studies of pulsars in binary systems, thermal emission from isolated neutron stars, glitches from pulsars, and quasi-periodic oscillations from accreting neutron stars provide information about neutron star masses, radii, temperatures, ages, and internal compositions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Biomedical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/70d4a5c3587b6c436e700979242a184747a762a6

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. D. M. Alexander
3. E. Berger
4. B. Metzger
5. Pawan Kumar
6. E. Liang
7. W. N. Brandt
8. Ramesh Narayan

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. A. Harding
2. S. Reddy
3. D. M. Alexander
4. Matt Braby
5. Mark Wayne Paris
6. K. Page
7. M. Alford
8. W. Ho

In Biomedical Engineering

1. Ramesh Narayan
2. Matt Braby
3. Mark Wayne Paris
4. Jonathan M. Miller
5. A. C. Fabian
6. M. Alford
7. S. Reddy
8. D. M. Alexander

Citations in the corpus

• Neutrino-dominated Accretion and Supernovae (2005, background): “If the mass of the core is 1.4M and its radius is about 30 km (e.g., Lattimer & Prakash 2004), then we have rin 7, which is the value we assume below.”
• Strange star equation of state fits the refined mass measurement of 12 pulsars and predicts their radii (2013, background): “The detection of massive (∼2 M ) pulsars has emphasized the need to study compact astrophysical objects since they place very strong constraints on the EOS of matter at extreme nuclear densities (e.g. Lattimer & Prakash 2004).”
• Stellar structure models in modified theories of gravity: Lessons and challenges (2019, background): “All these ingredients together make neutron stars extremely hard objects to crack [18].”
• Hybrid Stars that Masquerade as Neutron Stars (2004, background): “On the observational side, all massmeasurements are currently compatible, at the 2 level, with M P 1:7 M (Thorsett & Chakrabarty 1999; Lattimer & Prakash 2004).”
• NUCLEAR CONSTRAINTS ON PROPERTIES OF NEUTRON STAR CRUSTS (2009, background): “Consequently, our ability to understand accurately many important properties of neutron stars has been hampered (Lattimer & Prakash 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007).”
• THE NEUTRON STAR MASS DISTRIBUTION (2010, background): “When combined with measurements of NS radii, it also provides a distinctive insight into the structure of matter at supranuclear densities (Cook et al. 1994; Haensel 2003; Lattimer & Prakash 2004, 2007).”
• THE ULTRA-LONG GAMMA-RAY BURST 111209A: THE COLLAPSE OF A BLUE SUPERGIANT? (2012, background): “Trying to conciliate these values results in nonphysical solutions (e.g., a neutron star spinning at a value exceeding the breakup value, Plim = 0.96 ms, Lattimer & Prakash 2004).”