Physics of neutron stars: numerical simulations and multi-messenger signals
Abstract
Neutron stars are born in core-collapse supernova events with the collapse of the iron core of massive main-sequence stars, leading to an explosion of the outer layers. This produces a hot proto-neutron star, which still contains many electrons, and will eventually cool down through the emission of neutrinos to a cold, beta-equilibrated neutron star. As a compact object, neutron stars are powerful emitters of gravitational waves which, in turn, can provide us with valuable information about their composition and structure. In this seminar, after giving a brief introduction to the subject, I will give some details about the complex microphysics involved in the description of neutron stars and present the numerical models we have developed in our group to simulate them. Finally, some results will be shown illustrating the importance of using realistic microphysics inputs, as well as the capacity of multi-messenger observations to give us hints about e.g. a possible phase transition in neutron star matter.