University of Southampton's mathematicians have just found a new method in measuring isolated stars that exist on their own spaces --- the so-called young pulsars.

Nature World Report said that until recently scientists merely measured the mass of stars, moons, and planets by studying their motion in relation to nearby ones using the gravitational pull between the two as their basis in the calculations.

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Dr. Wynn Ho at the University of Southampton said that they have discovered this new method, which is using the principles of nuclear physics rather than gravity to work out on what the mass is for pulsars, which is an exciting breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize the old kind of calculation.

On the other hand, Dr. Cristobal Espinoza, from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, noted that pulsars in isolation can be weighed by using a different technique although the previous but precise measurements of pulsar masses were made for stars that orbit another object.

However, young pulsars sometimes experience some glitches where they find the chance to speed up for only a brief period of time. They emit a rotating beam of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by telescopes from Earth when the beam sweeps like that of a lighthouse. Hence, the new method is used.

As also reported by Immortal News, Dr. Ho collaborated that resulted this breakthrough with Dr. Nils Andersson, a professor of applied mathematics at the same university as the former is affiliated to, and Dr. Danai Antonopoulou from the University of Amsterdam as well as Dr. Espinoza.

With their new method, the glitch can be ignored. To cite as an example for the glitch, one can imagine the pulsar as a bowl of soup. It is spinning at one speed while the soup is spinning faster. The friction between the inside of the bowl and its content causes the bowl to speed up. Hence, the more soup there is inside the bowl, the faster the bowl will spin.

With their results they provide an exciting new link between laboratory work in both high-energy and low-temperature physics and the study of distant astronomical objects.

The star-weighing method is a perfect example of interdisciplinary science that Dr. Ho referred to as their new breakthrough.

The researchers have published their findings in the Science Advances journal.

 

Tagsisolated stars, young pulsars, nuclear physics, gravitational pull, electromagnetic radiation