15th September at 14:15: Anna Watts

Our first colloquium in the fall series is by Anna Watts from the University of Amsterdam on September 15th.

Anna Watts is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam. Her group studies neutron stars, in particular the ultradense nuclear matter in their cores, and their violent dynamical events such as starquakes and magnetic or thermonuclear explosions. She is an ERC Starting and Consolidator Grant laureate and in 2021 was awarded the Mid-Career Prize by the American Astronomical Society’s High Energy Astrophysics Division. 

The event will take place on Friday 15.9.23 at 14:15, in Exactum CK112.
The event was also streamed via Zoom. Link to video:  https://unitube.it.helsinki.fi/unitube/embed.html?id=7ea94a6a-93ae-4de6-a3d3-08ea192779b3

The title of her talk is: A NICER view of neutron stars

Her abstract reads:

NICER, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, is an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station. Its primary mission is to measure neutron star masses and radii, quantities that enable us to investigate the nature of the ultradense nuclear matter in the star’s cores. NICER exploits relativistic effects on X-rays emitted from the hot magnetic polar caps of millisecond pulsars, a technique that also lets us map the hot emitting regions on the stellar surface. I will present NICER’s latest results and discuss the implications for our understanding of ultradense matter, pulsar emission, and stellar magnetic fields.