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Transcript
Scientists discover surprising importance of 'I Love Q' for understanding neutron stars 25 July 2013 Scientists can learn a tremendous amount about neutron stars and quark stars without understanding their internal structure in detail, according to two Montana State University scientists who published their findings in the July 26 issue of "Science." "It doesn't matter if the star is made of different proportions of neutrons, quarks and other particles. In the end, how much the star can be squeezed will be a direct function of its moment of inertia," Yagi said. Yunes and Yagi used mathematical equations and computer models to discover that I, Love and Q "The stars could be the softest or the hardest in satisfy these universal relations. their kind, and it wouldn't matter," said Nicolas Yunes, assistant professor in MSU's Department of This is the first time that Yunes and Yagi have Physics. published their work in "Science," the world's leading journal of scientific research, global news The reason – discovered by Yunes and postdoctoral scholar Kent Yagi—is almost universal and commentary. The weekly publication is read by relations among three intrinsic properties of these an estimated 1 million readers. It is the academic highly compressed stars. These relations will allow journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. astrophysicists to learn about the shape and degree of deformation of these stars without "Getting a paper accepted into 'Science' is very knowing the details of their internal structure. difficult," Yunes said. "It's a great honor to be accepted. This encourages us to continue working These relations – described in Yunes and Yagi's hard to make new, important discoveries." paper titled "I Love Q" – are realized among the moment of inertia ("I"), the "Love number" and the Neutron stars and quark stars are extremely quadrupole moment ("Q"). compact. They contain an enormous amount of mass in a tiny radius. Because of that, they are so The first quantity describes how fast a star can rotate. The larger the number, the slower the spin dense that they exert an insanely strong gravitational pull, Yunes said. rate. "Think of twirling ice skaters," Yagi said. "If they bring their arms close to their bodies, the skaters' moment of inertia decreases, and so they spin faster." "Just imagine a ball the size of the sun being squeezed until it's the size of Bozeman," he said. "All the gravity of the sun, but amplified by factors of thousands." The Love number relates to the deformability of a star when squished. The larger the number, the more deformed the star is. The third quantity, "Q," refers to the changing shape of a star. Astrophysicists believe that these stars produce waves that vibrate through the universe, as the stars spiral into each other and collide. The scientists predict that they will be able to detect these "gravitational waves" by the end of this decade. If they are successful, they will have a whole new way of understanding the universe. A measurement of any one of these three quantities would allow astrophysicist to infer the other two to amazing precision without actually measuring them, according to the MSU researchers. "To make a simple analogy, these waves are like the soundtrack to the universe, and their detection 1/2 will be like transitioning from mute pictures to modern cinema," Yunes has said in the past. Yunes and Yagi believe that these I-Love-Q relations they have found will aid in the gravitational wave effort. "For instance, this universal relation could be used to test Einstein's Theory of General Relativity without contamination due to our ignorance of their internal structure," Yunes said. "You could also use these relations to tell whether what you have observed is a neutron star or a strange quark star." Not understanding the internal structure of neutron stars has presented a major challenge to certain astrophysical studies, but the "I Love Q relations show that you can proceed without that knowledge," Yunes said. More information: "I-Love-Q: Unexpected Universal Relations for Neutron Stars and Quark Stars" Science vol 341 26 July 2013 Provided by Montana State University APA citation: Scientists discover surprising importance of 'I Love Q' for understanding neutron stars (2013, July 25) retrieved 15 June 2017 from https://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientists-importanceneutron-stars.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. 2/2 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)