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Physical Society ColloquiumInterview for Faculty PositionThe Secret Life of Neutron StarsJeremy HeylHarvard UnivesityNeutron stars were discovered nearly thirty-five years ago, but until the last decade, for the most part those studied followed two metabolic strategies; they either derived energy from rotation (radio pulsars) or accretion (X-ray binaries). The Soft-Gamma Repeaters provided a hint that the neutron-star menagerie might be more diverse. Over the past decade ROSAT, and in much greater detail over the past few years, Chandra, XMM and RXTE have established new sections in the neutron-star zoo. I will discuss an important and possibly common manifestation of young neutron stars in the wild: thermally or magnetically powered neutron stars, also known as anomalous X-ray puslars and soft-gamma repeaters.Without a companion, neutron stars fade away in the X-rays a few million years after the supernova. However, in symbiosis with a low-mass star, an accreting neutron star can remain active for several billion years. I will tell the story of how old neutron stars get their stripes, which show up as Type-I burst oscillations, and speculate whether some shiver to keep warm, using gravitational-radiation reaction to heat their interiors.
Wednesday, January 29th 2003, 15:30
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103) |