Lecture 20 - Journey to the centre of a Neutron Star
It is an exciting time for neutron star astrophysics as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), one of the major next-generation mega-instruments, readies itself to discover tens of thousands of new neutron stars in just a few years time. India has a sizeable neutron star community with immediate access to both the GMRT (maintained by NCRA-TIFR) and the X-ray observatory Astrosat who await the data from the SKA to arrive.
There is no one better to tell us about neutron stars at this junture than Prof. Srinivasan, who not only established the first neutron star research group in India but has also played an important role in setting up GMRT as an open-access facility.
A neutron star is like a gigantic atomic nucleus in the sky, weighing more than our Sun, and ten kilometres in size; it is perhaps the most exotic celestial body we know of. In this lecture, we shall journey to the centre of a neutron star and explore its interior. We shall find very exotic nuclei, not found on earth. We shall encounter very exotic phenomena, such as superconductivity and superfluidity. We shall look for a possible nugget of quarks and gluons right near the centre.