Astrophysical signatures of neutron stars in compact binaries and experimental improvements on gravitational-wave detectors

Neutron stars (NSs) are astrophysical laboratories that allow us to probe physics at extreme conditions. The first half of this Thesis is devoted to exploring how we can connect theoretical models of NSs to observational signatures whose detections are made possible by state-of-the-art instruments. We start by exploring the dynamics of super-Eddington winds launched in type-I X-ray bursts at the surface of a NS. We show that freshly synthesized heavy elements can be exposed by the wind and will dominate the composition at the photosphere after ~ 1 s. This may create detectable absorption edges in burst spectra and explain the observed transitions from super-expansions to moderate expansions. Gravitational-wave (GW) observatories such as Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) open up a new possibility to probe deep inside the NS by examining the tidal signatures in the GW waveforms.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Yu, Hang,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nevin N. Weinberg and Matthew J. Evans.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123343

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123343