Neutron Stars Partially Dissected

mmol_6453 writes "An article at ScienceDaily details and explains observations that offer the first proof that what we consider neutron stars really are neutron superfluids. The original press release can be found here."

Comments

super fluids

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine at those super pressures found in a neutron star that our ways of defining states of matter would be of no relative importence. In the soup that is a neutron star, nuclear forces would dissasemble the parts of an atom. Now as we all know, there are 3 states of matter, solid, liquid, and gaseous, but a lot of people don't know about about a forth or even beyond. When one heats up a gas to super temperatures (like that found in a neutron star) the atoms will no longer be bound by their forces within them and neutrons will fly from protons in the nucleus, while the electrons would also start acting strangly. If we up the temp even more, the subatomic particles will start breaking down into their quarks and neutrinos. I am not sure what that state of matter is called, but that can happen in a neutron star. (just for fun, if you keep on heating the quarks and such, you would eventually rip a hole in space/time and I would really recomend leaving the room where you are doing this :)

Now my question is, this slush of various subatomic particles in the star: can you call it liquid? Another question is if you were to disect a neutron star, the subatomic particles would quickly reassemble themselves and you would be left with Hydrogen, wouldn't that leave you with almost no insite to a neutron? I could see how exciting this would be in an attempt to explain the seconds after the big bang, but just to explain superfluids?

bah..

Re:Cool stuff

[dvd_maximus]

Its core consists mainly of densely-packed neutrons, with a sprinkling of protons and typically 3 times as many electrons as protons

So the core is negatively charged? What part of the neutron star has the balancing positive charge? And more importantly: why?? What keeps the charge separated?

As a neutron star cools and grows ...

I thought neutron stars shrank as they cooled?

Re:forgot plasma

[The Red Rooster]

There are actually several more:
solid
liquid
gas
plasma
AND
Bose-Einst ien Condensate
Quark somethingorother
superfluids

BEC's are ultra-cold bodies of matter where all atoms in the conglomerate 'march' to the same drum. In effect, each atom behaves not just exactly the same as all other atoms, but as if the whole she-bang were one single atom.

With the Quarks, inside super-hot, super-dense areas, quarks free themselves, something not normally allowed. The quarks end up shielding themselves from each other so that they cannot recombine quite as easily. IOW, you can actually cool the cloud down just a bit.

Superfluids are states not unlike BEC's wherein all sorts of strange things happen. Helium is the famous example. You can get superfluidic helium to flow uphill in the right conditions.