Session S04: DNP/DAP Awards Session

Live

Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are bright point sources found in nearby galaxies that are offset from the nucleus, and are therefore not associated with a central supermassive black hole. Because the apparent luminosity exceeds the Eddington limit for a 10 Solar mass black hole by factors of up to one thousand, ULXs were long believed to harbor intermediate mass black holes. Recently, it has been demonstrated that some ULXs in fact contain neutron stars, challenging our understanding of accretion onto magnetized compact objects. I will review the current observational status, and speculate on the nature of the compact objects in the population as a whole.   

Live

A multitude of probes have been proposed and utilized as diagnostics of the new state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, produced in relativistic nuclear collisions at the SPS, RHIC, and LHC. In my talk I will review that diagnostic power of these probes, their practical success, and their promise of future insights.   

Live

Neutron stars were first posited in the early thirties, and discovered as pulsars in the late sixties; however we are only recently beginning to understand the matter they contain. I will describe, semi-historically, the ongoing development of a consistent picture of the liquid interiors of neutron stars, driven by observational as well as theoretical advances. These include observations of now three heavy neutron stars of $\sim$ 2.0 solar masses and higher; simultaneous inferences of masses and radii of neutron stars via the NICER telescope, as well as earlier in low mass X-ray binaries; and past and future observations of binary neutron star mergers, through gravitational waves as well as across the electromagnetic spectrum. Theoretically an understanding is emerging in QCD of how nuclear matter can turn into deconfined quark matter in the interior, and be capable of supporting heavy neutron stars. With this as a basis I will discuss modern quark-hadron crossover equations of state, and comparison of their predictions with current observations.