This week I enjoyed attending (virtually) a workshop on neutron-star cooling at the UW Institute for Nuclear Theory. Neutron stars are "hot" immediately after formation but generally cool fairly rapidly, unless they are subsequently heated by other processes. One option is accretion, where a binary companion can donate material to the neutron star, heating it (as well as causing lots of other interesting phenomena like pulsations and thermonuclear bursts).

When accretion turns off we can measure how the neutron star cools, which provides information about the conditions in the crust; observations of some sources has been going on for more than a decade. This workshop was dedicated to a broad theoretical and observational view of this phenomenon, and I gave an invited talk on observations of thermonuclear bursts and superbursts.

It was really nice to be attending a conference again, even if virtually, and if the time zone wasn't exactly conducive to full particpation from my part! Thanks to the organisers and sponsors for putting together an great program.

Labels: 2022, meetings