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Context
| Neutron
stars have masses of around 1.4 solar masses and radii of 10-12 km. As
a consequence, the matter inside these objects is extremely dense, and
in some cases even denser than the matter in the nucleus of the atom.
This makes neutron stars interesting from the point of view of particle
physics, where exotic particles may exist in an environment that we can
not recreate on Earth. Further, the super-conducting protons inside
neutron stars, coupled with the extreme charactersitics of these
objects result in huge magnetic fields and the acceleration of
particles to relativistic speeds, creating very high energy emission. |
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