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Wednesday, May 14, 2014
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Cahill, Hameetman Auditorium

Greenstein Lecture

The Hunt for Millisecond Pulsar
Vicki Kaspi, McGill,
  The continued search for more of nature's most perfect clocks -- millisecond radio pulsars -- has recently taken a more urgent turn given the potential of these objects to detect and study gravitational waves from a variety of potential sources, most likely merging supermassive black holes.  Additionally, their discovery has invariably led to surprising and interesting astrophysical results as novel binary MSPs are revealed and studied.  Such bonuses include constraints on the equation-of-state of dense matter, tests of theories of gravity, as well as surprises in binary evolution.  Most recently, the hunt for millisecond pulsars has led to a new, serendipitous discovery, the so-called `Fast Radio Bursts,' few-ms single pulses of unknown origin, from apparently cosmological distances.  Here I describe ongoing millisecond pulsar searches and their recent bounty, as well as plans for future study of these objects, as well as of single-burst sources.  
For more information, please contact Althea E. Keith by phone at 626-395-4973 or by email at [email protected].