Inside exotic dead star is a pile of waffles

摘要

Neutron stars for breakfast? If you could slice open a dense stellar corpse and zoom in, its internal structure might look like a pile of waffles. This theoretical structure of matter may hold clues for designing strong materials on Earth. Neutron stars are the remnants of supernovae, in which a massive star is crushed into a sphere just kilometres across. Matter rearranges itself into unusual configurations at these extreme pressures. Charles Horowitz at Indiana University Bloomington and his colleagues simulated a tiny box of neutron-star material smaller than a single atom, yet containing tens of thousands of protons and neutrons squeezed super close. Inside, the strong nuclear force and the electrostatic force - which don't encounter each other at human scales - fight over the packed protons and neutrons and drive them into strange configurations, collectively dubbed "nuclear pasta".