Related papers: Star Wreck
Some accreting neutron stars and young stars show unexplained episodic flares in the form of quasi-periodic oscillations or recurrent outbursts. In a series of two papers we present new work on an instability that can lead to episodic…
The core of a neutron star contains several species of particles, whose relative equilibrium concentrations are determined by the local density. As the star spins down, its centrifugal force decreases continuously, and the star contracts.…
The hydrogen and helium accreted by X-ray bursting neutron stars is periodically consumed in runaway thermonuclear reactions that cause the entire surface to glow brightly in X-rays for a few seconds. With models of the emission, the mass…
Supersymmetric models predict a natural dark-matter candidate, stable baryonic Q-balls. They could be copiously produced in the early Universe as a by-product of the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis. I review the cosmological and astrophysical…
One possible channel for black hole formation is the collapse of a rigidly rotating massive neutron star as it loses its angular momentum or gains excessive mass through accretion. It was proposed that part of the neutron star may form a…
It is now recognized that long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are linked to the collapse of massive stars, based on the association between (low-redshift) GRBs and (type Ic) core-collapse supernovae (SNe). The census of massive stars and…
In the MSSM with gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking, there may exist unstable but long-lived solitons carrying large baryonic charge, or B-balls. These decay well afterthe electroweak phase transition, giving rise to B-ball…
In this article I will review the theory behind the gravitational wave driven r-mode instability in rapidly rotating neutron stars and discuss which constraints can be derived from observations of spins and temperatures in Low Mass X-ray…
{"Bare collapse", the collapse of a bare stellar core to a neutron star with a very small mass ejection links two seemingly unrelated phenomena: the formation of binary neutron star (BNS) systems and the observations of fast and luminous…
When neutron stars accrete matter from a companion star, this matter forms a disc around them and eventually falls on their surface. Here, the fuel can ignite into bright flashes called Type I bursts. Theoretical calculations based on…
We propose the model describing the observed multiple fast radio bursts due to the close encounters and collisions of neutron stars in the central clusters of the evolved galactic nuclei. The subsystem of neutron star cluster may originate…
Glitches are sudden spin-up events that interrupt the gradual spin-down of rotating neutron stars. They are believed to arise from the rapid unpinning of vortices in the neutron star inner crust. The analogy between the inner crust of…
The formation of neutron stars (NSs), both from collapses of massive stars and mergers of compact objects, can be usually indicated by bright transients emitted from explosively-ejected material. In particular, if the newborn NSs can rotate…
In the context of the standard model of particle physics, there is a definite upper limit to the density of stable compact stars. However, if there is a deeper layer of constituents, below that of quarks and leptons, stability may be…
In many supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model the spectrum of states contains stable non-topological solitons, Q-balls. If formed in the Early Universe in sufficient amounts, Q-balls now contribute to cold dark matter. We discuss…
The assembly of supermassive black holes poses a challenge primarily because of observed quasars at high redshift, but additionally because of the current lack of observations of intermediate mass black holes. One plausible scenario for…
We investigate remnant neutron star masses (in particular, the minimum allowed mass) by performing advanced stellar evolution calculations and neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics simulations for core-collapse supernova explosions. We find…
The existence of stars with a large mass of 2 solar masses means that the equation of state is stiff enough to provide high enough pressure at large central densities. Previous work shows that such a stiff equation of state is possible if…
A generic consequence of supersymmetry is formation of a scalar condensate along the flat directions of the potential at the end of cosmological inflation. This condensate is usually unstable, and it can fragment into non-topological…
Supermassive black holes are now realized to exist in the centers of most galaxies. The recent discoveries of luminous quasars at redshifts higher than 6 require that these black holes were assembled already when the Universe was less than…