Magnetic reconnection around a neutron star (LANDERS_U21SCIEC)

The root cause of a wide range of neutron-star phenomena – X-ray and gamma-ray bursts and flares, and potentially also fast radio bursts – is likely to be plastic motion of the star’s crust. Such motion occurs when built-up stresses exceed the crust’s elastic limit. The deforming crust causes twisting in the magnetic-field lines that extend outside the star and through a zone filled with charged particles, known as the magnetosphere. The emission from the star depends on the nature of the magnetospheric magnetic field, and – in particular – large-scale release of energy requires the field lines to reconnect in a lower-energy, less twisted state. 

This project will study the evolution of the magnetospheric field and the process of reconnection.  Building on a large body of work in the context of the solar corona, the applicant will analyse the validity of this for the extreme context of a neutron-star magnetosphere, where relativistic and quantum electrodynamic effects become important. This part of the work will be semi-analytic, but the second phase will be computational: the applicant will write a numerical code to evolve the reconnecting magnetospheric field. The results will be confronted against observations, in particular burst energetics and waiting times, in order to constrain the model and the physics of neutron-star magnetospheric reconnection. 

For more information on the supervisor for this project, please go here https://people.uea.ac.uk/samuel_lander

This is a PhD programme. The start date is 1st October 2021. The mode of study is full time. The studentship length is 3 years. 

Entry requirements: Minimum 1st class BSc, or 2:1 Masters in Physics, Mathematics or Engineering