RUI: Probing QCD with Magnetic Fields in the Multimessenger Astronomy Era

The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg TX

Investigators

Abstract

There are astrophysical objects named neutron stars (NS) so dense that a single thimbleful of its inner matter would have a mass of about 100 million tons. Quite often, these stellar objects are also permeated by very large magnetic fields. A special class of neutron stars, known as magnetars, can have surface magnetic fields fifteen orders of magnitude stronger than the sun’s, and even much stronger fields in their inner cores are expected to exist. A very important goal of the nuclear theory community is to model and investigate the properties of matter under these extreme conditions. The recent observations of gravitational waves generated by neutron star mergers and the subsequent detection of gamma-ray bursts and other electromagnetic signals from the same source opened a new, very promising era of multimessenger astronomy – one that is pushing the boundaries of knowledge and understanding about the star’s composition, elements formation, and the evolution of our universe. In this multi-messenger era, observations including pulsar timing, gamma-ray bursts, and gravitational waves detection are booming, so the pressure to identify models of star composition that can explain those observations is intensifying. This project is aligned with these efforts, trying to explore the matter phases that can exist at extreme conditions like high matter density and extremely strong magnetic fields. Graduate and undergraduate students will benefit through their participation in related research tasks. In 2015, the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observatories opened a new window to observe the universe through gravitational waves (GW). On August 17th, 2017, a new type of astrophysical source of GW was detected that signalized the sources as NS. NS are unique natural laboratories for investigating the physics of cold and highly dense nuclear matter beyond the capability of terrestrial experiments. Macroscopic characteristics of NS, such as masses, radii, tidal deformability, cooling, and other properties that can be measured from GW and electromagnetic observations, are related, through the star equation of state and its heat transport, to the inner matter phase of the star. In this project, the PIs will use the insight gained in previous work regarding the connection between topological condensed matter systems and cold-dense quark matter to explore some transformative ideas like a possible connection between NS and dark matter, as well as to continue expanding the understanding of quark-matter under extreme conditions. This project advances the objectives of "Windows on the Universe: the Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics", one of the 10 Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.