Colloq Abstract - Demorest
February 1, 2019
11:00am Mountain
Paul Demorest (NRAO)
Recent results from the NANOGrav project
Abstract
Rapidly rotating, magnetized neutron stars (also known as millisecond pulsars; MSPs) emit beams of radio waves that sweep past Earth once per rotation. By carefully measuring the pulse arrival times using radio telescopes, these sources act as a set of natural clocks distributed throughout our galaxy. Their stability and extreme densities make them useful for several physics experiments not possible in the lab on Earth. In this presentation I will describe recent results from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). The NANOGrav project monitors a large set of MSPs with the main goal of detecting timing fluctuations from nHz-frequency gravitational waves emitted by supermassive black hole mergers. A byproduct of this effort is the precise measurement of the masses of many neutron stars, which helps constrain the uncertain equation of state of nuclear matter.
