Schrodinger's Cat Is In Town II

In this workshop ideated by Postdoctoral Fellow Dena Izadi from the Physics Education Research Lab and Professor Mohammad Maghrebi, makers, physicists, and the community are invited to come together to explore physics phenomena through art. Work collaboratively with Abbie Stevens, NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow, to create visual representations of pulsars—celestial objects that emit electromagnetic radiation!

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Transcript

1. Schrodinger’s Cat is in Town II Dr. Abbie Stevens
2. Image: R.N. Bailey, CC BY 4.0, WikiMedia 2 2 Life cycle of a star
3. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova WaLs+16 Image credit: ESA / HST / L. Calcada / NASA GSFC
4. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! Watts+16 Image credit: Google maps
5. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! • Their average density is equal to the density of an atomic nucleus! Watts+16 Image credit: Watts+16
6. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! • Their average density is equal to the density of an atomic nucleus! Watts+16 Image credit: WaLs+16
7. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! • Their average density is equal to the density of an atomic nucleus! • VERY strong gravity: acceleration at surface is 100,000,000,000x stronger than on Earth Watts+16 Image credit: JBO/John Rowe Animation
8. Neutron star Photo credit: F.E.Austin • Le^over when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! • Their average density is equal to the density of an atomic nucleus! • VERY strong gravity: accelera_on at surface is 100,000,000,000x stronger than on Earth • Has a magne_c field 1 billion – 1 quadrillion _mes stronger than Earth’s
9. Neutron star • Leftover when a massive star (10-20x as big as our Sun) dies in a supernova • About 15 miles across, with 1.5x the mass of the Sun! • Their average density is equal to the density of an atomic nucleus! • VERY strong gravity: acceleration at surface is 100,000,000,000x stronger than on Earth • Has a magnetic field 1 billion – 1 quadrillion times stronger than Earth’s • Spin on their axis up to 100’s of times per second! Watts+16 Image credit: Warner Bros.
10. PULSAR • A neutron star with a very strong magne_c field Watts+16 Image credit: Mysid/R. Smits Magnetic field lines (invisible!)
11. PULSAR • A neutron star with a very strong magnetic field • Shines bright beams of light out of its north and south magnetic poles Watts+16 Video credit: NASA
12. Fancy PULSAR Some types of pulsars might have a twisted magnetic field structure, so they might have multiple poles in different shapes and locations! Watts+16 Video credit: NASA
13. PULSAR • A neutron star with a very strong magne_c field • Shines bright beams of light out of its north and south magne_c poles • Beams of light + spinning = pulses (like a lighthouse) Watts+16 Kramer gif Image credit: M. Kramer; H.Craft/P.Saville
14. Studying pulsars in space Image credit: NASA NICER: Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR
15. Studying pulsars in space Video credit: NASA
16. Supernova remnants • Gas from outer layers of exploding star heating up as it hits ambient space dust Watts+16 Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
17. Supernova remnants • Gas from outer layers of exploding star hea_ng up as it hits ambient space dust Watts+16 Image credit: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato+ & DSS Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
18. Supernova remnants • Gas from outer layers of exploding star heating up as it hits ambient space dust Watts+16 Image credit: NASA/ESA/HST
19. Pulsar wind nebulae • Energetic particles from the pulsar collide with the ambient space dust Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward & ESA/ASU/J.Hester & A.Loll; & JPL-Caltech/UMinn./R.Gehrz
20. Pulsar wind nebulae • Energetic particles from the pulsar collide with the ambient space dust Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/F.Summers+; CXC/SAO/N.Wolk+ & Caltech/IPAC/R.Hurt
21. Pulsar wind nebulae • Energetic particles from the pulsar collide with the ambient space dust Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/McGill
22. What you’re doing! Watts+16 Image credits: N. Gentry;
23. • Chandra X-ray Observatory: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/ • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Media Studios: gms.gsfc.nasa.gov/ • Scientific papers: • Watts et al. 2016, RevModPhys 88, 021001 • Arzoumanian & Gendreau 2019 on ApJL Focus issue Further resources
24. Image credit: NASA/CXC/K. Divona