Related papers: An Origin for Pulsar Kicks in Supernova Hydrodynam…
Pulsars are stars that emit electromagnetic radiation in well-defined time intervals. The frequency of such pulses decays with time as is quantified by the {\it braking index} ($n$). In the canonical model $n = 3$ for all pulsars, but…
The thermonuclear runaway that culminates in the explosion of a Chandrasekhar mass white dwarf as a Type Ia supernova begins centuries before the star actually explodes. Here, using a 3D anelastic code, we examine numerically the convective…
In a recent paper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 211101 (2005) [hep-ph/0502166], Schmitt et al. have proposed a new mechanism to explain the observed velocities of pulsars. The proposed explanation is based on anisotropic emission of neutrinos from…
By means of two-dimensional (2D) simulations we study hydrodynamic instabilities during the first seconds of neutrino-driven supernova explosions, using a PPM hydrodynamics code, supplemented with a gray, non-equilibrium approximation of…
The extremely luminous supernova SN 2006gy challenges the traditional view that the collapse of a stellar core is the only mechanism by which a massive star makes a supernova, because it seems too luminous by more than a factor of ten. Here…
Mature neutron stars are expected to have several superfluid components. Strong evidence for this is provided by the glitches that have been observed in dozens of pulsars. The underlying idea behind most glitch models is that, as the…
Core-Collapse supernovae arise from stars greater than 8 $\msun$. These stars lose a considerable amount of mass during their lifetime, which accumulates around the star forming wind-blown bubbles. Upon the death of the star in a…
We show that neutrino-driven pulsar kicks can increase the energy of the supernova shock. The observed large velocities of pulsars are believed to originate in the supernova explosion, either from asymmetries in the ejecta or from an…
The magnetic fields of neutron stars have a large range (~3e10 - 1e15 G). There may be a tendency for more highly magnetized neutron stars to come from more massive stellar progenitors, but other factors must also play a role. When combined…
We revisit the formation of PSR J0737-3039, taking into account the most recent observational constraints. We show that the most likely kick velocity and progenitor parameters depend strongly on the consideration of the full…
Pulsars are among the most mysterious astrophysical objects in the Universe and are believed to be rotating neutron stars formed in supernova explosions. They are unique testing grounds of dense matter theories and gravitational physics and…
The "characteristic age" of a pulsar usually is considered to approximate its true age, but this assumption has led to some puzzling results, including the fact that many pulsars with small characteristic ages have no associated supernova…
The puzzle of birth velocities of pulsars (pulsar kicks) could be solved by an asymmetric explosion of type II Supernovae. We propose a simple hydrodynamical mechanism in order to explain this asymmetry, through the advective-acoustic cycle…
We have recently proposed an explanation for the birth velocities of pulsars based on neutrino oscillations (hep-ph/9606428). One of the quantities, dN/dT, was evaluated in the approximation of constant chemical potential for the electrons.…
We show that Majoron emission from a hot nascent neutron star can be anisotropic in the presence of a strong magnetic field. If Majorons carry a non-negligible fraction of the supernova energy, the resulting recoil velocity of a neutron…
A millisecond pulsar is a neutron star that has been substantially spun up by accretion from a binary companion. A previously unrecognized factor governing the spin evolution of such pulsars is the crucial effect of non-steady or transient…
Pulsars show a steady decrease in their rotational frequency, occasionally interrupted by sudden spin-ups called glitches, whose physical origin is still a mystery. One suggested explanation for at least the small glitches are starquakes,…
We show that when a supernova explodes, a nearby pulsar signal goes through a very specific change. The observed period first changes smoothly, then is followed by a sudden change in the time derivative. A stable millisecond pulsar can…
We present recent work on using astronomical observations of neutron stars to reveal unique insights into nuclear matter that cannot be obtained from laboratories on Earth. First, we discuss our measurement of the rapid cooling of the…
Massive stars, by which we mean those stars exploding as core collapse supernovae, play a pivotal role in the evolution of the Universe. Therefore, the understanding of their evolution and explosion is fundamental in many branches of…