Properties of pasta phases in neutron star crusts

by Christopher Pethick (Nordita)

Wednesday 22 Apr 2020, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/530682073

In the outer parts of neutron stars at densities just below nuclear densities it is predicted that nuclei can adopt plate-like and rod-like shapes, so-called pasta phases because of their resemblance to lasagna and spaghetti.  While these phases are expected to make up only a small fraction of the mass of the star, they can have important observational consequences because many observable phenomena depend on the properties of the outer parts of the star. I shall discuss elastic and magnetic properties of these phases. Part of the presentation will be based on a recent preprint arXiv:2003.13430 written in collaboration with Zhao-Wen Zhang and Dmitry Kobyakov.