Neutron Star Mergers and the Origin of the Elements - Eliot Quataert - 03/01/2019

[@rafapieroni84]

Public lectures on KZbin is the real democratisation of the knowledge. Thanks a lot KZbin and Caltech.

[@ianian8022]

Thankyou for putting this on youtube.

[@JimKrause1975]

So absolutely fascinating!

[@allen2879]

This is actually a very informative lecture!

[@kenlee5509]

Yay Mike! Thank you! Subscription #615. :) My stepfather was the progenitor of all your orbital mechanics texts, Woodson W. Baldwin.

[@CaltechAstro]

You're welcome! Thank you for being our newest subscriber!

[@kenlee5509]

@@CaltechAstro Cutting edge research is the best part of You Tube. After Tim Pool, Hard Bastard, Democracy Now, Duerst is the Werst ... (all of which I reccomend watching) , the discoveries of humanities best is one way I wash the dirt from my brain, the other is watching engineering failures, or, cars on ice. :) ~Woody's password was Syrinx, ...for the computer under Areospace, and Elsegundo? Blv, and Northrup... Maybe you could run a program to find his team's work ... especially their modeling of the "Rattleback Effect" wherein they modeled the Australian toy, the Rattleback, to solve why early satellites were flipping upside down after many orbits. The rise to peak and degradation is strikingly similar to the LIGO data... ~Also, I want to see the long distance North and South pulse effects of collisions, Mass differentials will wobble them. before lunch, please. :-D

[@pansepot1490]

Lecture starts at 4:13

[@CaltechAstro]

We always add the timestamp of the lecture to the description, but thanks for pointing it out anyhow!

[@marc-andrebrunet5386]

Adjust audio next time please ! We...old students were audio-video expert in the 80's... The subject is interesting !

[@CaltechAstro]

Hi Marc, Sadly we're not audio-video experts, so we'd really appreciate any advice you have. What's the main problem with the audio, and what's the best way to fix it?

[@marc-andrebrunet5386]

@@CaltechAstro hi😊 I suggest you a good link for the basic rules , RealHomeRecording.com. i think it's a lot faster with KZbin video than me with a long Text📝.. I come from french side of Canada, Montreal , I know Caltech for 5 years because of internet👍, English is my second language. The best serie you have and i love to watch is : The Mechanical Universe from 1987. I'm 39 and I'm a far North Fan of astronomy, physics, technology and Caltech offers me good stuff to learn for free, thanks a lot and i hope one day i will visit you "Super-Students" Of California 🇺🇸

[@kenlee5509]

@@CaltechAstro Brady Haran is your man here. Just get him from Newcastle ... it _is_ quite cold there currently ... (U. of Nottingham) Brady's Top 10 - Periodic Table of Videos kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJbUhJpsorNpfrc

[@user-mz5zz3bx4j]

It's very disappointing that useful heavy elements like uranium and platinum are produced in significant quantities only in very rare events like neutron star mergers.

[@FCPWHAT]

Video starts 5:09 !!

[@ianian8022]

if you mis-read the middle of page one hard enough you'll notice Niehls Bohr was a contributor too :-)

[@merlepatterson]

Other than Neutron bombardment in stars creating heavier elements, isn't there the situation during stellar collapse in which heavier elements simply fuse together via sheer gravitational forces shortly before the star is ripped apart from supernova explosion? For instance an Iron Molecule fuses directly with another heavy molecule from brute force gravitational pressures into another heavier element? And that this process is rapidly repeated during collapse in deep stellar layers multiple times to form many differing heavy elements? Or am I mistaken about how heavier elements are created from collapsing stars?

[@CaltechAstro]

You are correct that core-collapse supernova can produce heavy elements during the explosion. However, supernovae are relatively brief events and cannot sustain the conditions necessary to fuse to the most massive elements in the periodic table, topping out around atomic number 40. Neutron star mergers can sustain neutron bombardment to significantly higher masses. Here is a good graphic showing the breakdown of different elements and their relative cosmic sources: www.sciencealert.com/this-awesome-periodic-table-shows-the-origins-of-every-atom-in-your-body

[@merlepatterson]

@@CaltechAstro The main reason I asked is because I didn't hear this specific talking point brought into the discussion. Or did I happen to miss the point at which it was?

[@CaltechAstro]

I think it was briefly mentioned in the Panel Q&A, but we weren't specifically asked to discuss every possible mechanism for the creation of all the elements. The focus was mostly on what neutron star mergers can produce, which is to say, the heaviest elements on the periodic table. There is another great presentation that I think covers the whole periodic table a bit more broadly if you're interested. It was given by Ivanna Escala about a year ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/haKtY2ilZa2pmrc

[@merlepatterson]

@Caltech Astro Also, I was interested to know what astrophysicists think of the possibility of heavy element formation at the interface of gas and dust to Quasar ejection streams? Is there a possibility of heavy element created via Quasar stream bombardment which is as yet unknown? I suppose I'm more or less thinking out loud than anything else at the moment. Edit: Adding the notion of large crossing bodies such as asteroids, planets and stars which orbit quasars in an obliq manner which takes them directly into the path of a Quasar stream.

[@CaltechAstro]

@@merlepatterson I don't think that is a favored mechanism for the creation of heavy elements.

[@Serenoj69]

Wouldnt mergers be more common because the universe was a lot smaller after 1 billion years? So less stars and surely far less neutron starts but also more cramped? As an answer/question to what is said near 56:40.

[@CaltechAstro]

Maybe. Neutron star binaries didn't become binaries because two neutron stars happened to encounter each other while flying through space. Rather, they came from a pair of binary stars that were born together from the same gas cloud, lived out their lives together, and died. There are a host of other reasons why the merger rate could have been higher in the past--such as the higher star formation rate ~3 billion years after the Big Bang--but they're not related to whether the universe was more cramped or not.

[@Serenoj69]

THX!

[@nousernamejoshua1556]

I'm reminded that if we compressed New York to the size of a pea and hit it with microwaves of the Higgs field until it reached the size of Texas and hit it with a hammer we would have lots of gold and platinum to go around. Ligo would be happy Compressing in on itself is one transitional state which just means radioactive not gold or platinum. No idea where gold or platinum came from but the elements they choose to discover are radioactivity. How can a star of complete transition and annihilation have any components of an element? Anyway, what is the physical force that allows a "neutron star" to exist? Lorentz force law? Did the galaxy itself destroy the star? Magma flows are extraordinarily radioactive substances.

[@nousernamejoshua1556]

Orion shook his head and walked off into the pool cave, chuckling. "Made in heaven!"

[@lajinmark2084]

The guy doing the intro did not have to dress up so much! Scholarly T-shirt!

[@ArtDocHound]

Poor audio for headphones.

[@ianian8022]

a milligram of gold between my ears might make sense but in every other cell in my body? I wish....

[@CaltechAstro]

He misspoke. What he probably meant was that the whole human body has about 0.2 mg of gold.

[@jimsteen911]

More lectures, preferably less dumbed down. Idk who perpetuated the "no equation" myth but I want the full picture which included mathematics.

[@CaltechAstro]

We try for our public lectures to be appropriate for people of all levels, and many audience members are turned off by the presence of too much math. That said, if you'd like all the equations and detailed science, I suggest you check out our other KZbin channel meant for professional astronomers. In particular, see our Colloquia and Tea Talk playlists: kzbin.info/door/-zYBv_IqFp2f9huYQA1VSw

[@kenlee5509]

Why is LIGO #3 VIRGO? in Europe less sensitive?

[@CaltechAstro]

VIRGO isn't really LIGO #3. It was designed and constructed by a separate team, and part of the reason why it's less sensitive is that its arms are 3 km long--compared to LIGO's 4 km. That said, both teams are working hard to improve their sensitivity, and it's possible that VIRGO won't be the underdog forever despite the physical disadvantage.

[@stormy5778]

LiGO kicks gravitational waves. Pluto is a pivot point for a long distance relationship between the two. Perhaps...... it may constitute a wider field of truth or denial. Go. Cal-tech Pasadena ☆ Jet Propulsion Labs N.A.S.A. you're my terrestrial Stars.... pax et Lux... j

[@stormy5778]

Caltech. I heart you back. It is all appropriate we have realized [entanglement] Best Regards a disturbance in the field.....

[@irfanhasanswarna5798]

❤

[@zxwmabcdef5439]

There is a star it starts with a p i can't spell it. It has 126Ubh in its spectrum.

[@metacomet2066]

Przybylski's star?

[@wadmiltilt9344]

At 36.34. .... ' each cell in our bodies contains just less than 1 mg of gold.....' Really ? A human body contains several trillion cells therefore by your statement should weigh several billion grams!

[@CaltechAstro]

You're right, he misspoke. What he probably meant was that the whole human body has about 0.2 mg of gold.

[@CaltechAstro]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body

[@kenlee5509]

Gram, Microgram ... what's a few scalars between friends? Can I store my 1 meter Nutronium ball in your closet please?

[@ratdad48]

Like crazy like what the like wow like.

[@herrvonloo]

The lecturer seriously needs a vocal coach. The volume fluctuations in his voice distracts from the contents.