Calendar of Events

Speaker: Wynn Ho (Haverford)

Pulsars are famous for having very precisely measured spin rates, and this spin evolves extremely regularly for most pulsars. However, the spin of young pulsars can occasionally undergo sudden changes, known as glitches. Glitches are thought to be due to interactions between normal and superfluid matter in the crust and core of the star. Thus observations and understanding of glitches allow us to probe fundamental nuclear physics and superfluidity. I will give an introduction to pulsar glitches and the superfluid model. I then describe a novel, non-gravitational method for measuring the mass of isolated pulsars using glitches. Finally I discuss the unique glitching pulsar PSR J0537-6910, which is being monitored by the NICER experiment on the International Space Station. NICER data is crucial for LIGO/Virgo searches of gravitational waves from this pulsar, whose spin behavior could be due in part to emission of gravitational waves.

Host: Jack Hughes/Prasiddha Arunachalam