What is inside a Pulsar?

Abstract

Pulsars (nickname for Pulsating Sources of Radio) were discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish. They are remarkable objects in the sky from which blips (pulses) of radio waves are detected by radio telescopes. The pulses are so regular in frequency that it was wonderedin the immediate aftermath of their discovery whether they were the much awaited signals from an alien civilization! But through a combination of observation and theory, it was soon realised that a Pulsar is in fact one giant rotating nucleus.

After a brief introduction to Pulsars and their formation, the talk will focus on what is likely to be their internal composition and why they are also called “Neutron Stars”.

The talk will be very introductory, meant for students from all branches of Physics. But near the end we will briefly discuss some very fundamental concepts of elementarily, that play a role in the equation of state of the pulsars.