First results from the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (Note Unusual Room)

by Prof. Anna Watts (UVA)

Tuesday 28 Jan 2020, 13:15 → 14:15 Europe/Stockholm

FB52 (Albanova)

NICER, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, is an X-ray telescope that was installed on the International Space Station in 2017. Its mission is to study the nature of the densest matter in the Universe, found in the cores of neutron stars.  NICER uses Pulse Profile Modeling, a technique that exploits relativistic effects on X-rays emitted from the hot magnetic polar caps of millisecond pulsars.   The technique also lets us map the hot emitting regions, which form as magnetospheric particles slam into the stellar surface.  I will present NICER's first results, for the pulsar PSR J0030+0451, and discuss the implications for our understanding of ultradense matter, pulsar emission, and stellar magnetic fields.