After the death of a star, tiny objects can form in the interior of a neutron star. Our sun is compressed into a sphere with the size of a large city. Scientists have been trying to understand their structure since they discovered it.
It's difficult to recreate the conditions inside a neutron star on Earth, as they can't be. The equations of state are used to describe density and temperature in many models. The aim of these equations is to describe the structure of the stars.
Physicists at Goethe University were able to add more important pieces to the puzzle. More than a million different equations of state have been created by the working group at the Institute of Theoretical Physics. Their work is in a journal.
The working group made a surprising discovery when they looked at the equations of state, they found that "light" neutron stars have a soft mantle and a stiff core, whereas "Heavy" neutron stars have more mass.
It gives us a direct measure of how compressible the center of the stars can be.
The Bachelor's student focused on the speed of sound. The quantity measure shows how fast sound waves can travel inside an object. Sound is used to explore the interior of the planet and find oil deposits.
By modeling the equations of state, the physicists were able to uncover other mysteries. They probably have a radius of only 12 km. They are the same size as the hometown of Goethe University.
The study allows us to make predictions for the radii and maximum mass of the stars, but also to set new limits on how much they distort each other through their gravity. The unknown equation of state with future astronomy observations and the detection of waves from merging stars will become particularly important.
The Astrophysical Journal Letters has more information on the sound speed in nova stars. There is a document titled "10847/2041-8213/ac9b2a".
Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters
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