Overview:

This broadly based five week INT program will explore ways of inferring properties and phases of dense matter from both laboratory experiments and astronomical observations. The program will involve a number of communities including those working on nuclear/quark matter, lattice QCD, heavy-ion and radioactive-beam experiments at low to intermediate energies, and also astrophysicists and observers working on the structure and evolution of neutron stars. The program will discuss both equilibrium properties such as the equation of state that constrains neutron star masses and radii, and transport properties such as thermal conductivity. These transport properties depend on the composition of dense matter, and are important for neutron star evolution. We will emphasize the need for a consistent many-body description of both equilibrium and transport properties and investigate how these can be probed by laboratory experiments and astronomical observations.

Goals:

1. Clarify our knowledge of the QCD phase diagram.
2. Tighten connections between particular laboratory and astronomical observables and the properties of dense matter.
3. Improve communication among nuclear physicists and astrophysicists.

Program format:

Week two (July 18-22) will include a workshop “Laboratory and astronomical observations of dense matter” that will feature many talks on both nuclear experiments and astronomical observations related to dense matter. Organizers for this workshop include Feryal Ozeyl, Scott Ransom, Sanjay Reddy, and Anna Watts. The other weeks will have a few morning talks and an informal afternoon discussion.

Schedule:

We encourage people to come when they can, for as long as they can. The following schedule of topics is not exhaustive. Additional topics will be discussed in each week according to program attendance.

Week one (July 11-15): Bulk properties, neutron star masses and radii, equation of state.

Week two (July 18-22): Workshop "Laboratory and astronomical observations of dense matter".
There will be a $35 registration fee to attend the 16-2b embedded workshop. The registration fee includes participation in the workshop, lectures, and coffee breaks.

Week three (July 25-29): Neutron star evolution: cooling, spin down, r-modes, … Transport properties of dense matter: thermal and electrical conductivity, viscosity, neutrino emissivity...

Week four (Aug. 1-5): Phases at subnuclear densities: liquid/ vapor transition, nuclear pasta, supernova neutrinosphere matter … Laboratory nuclear structure experiments such as PREX related to dense matter.

Week five (Aug. 8-12): Heavy ion experiments (at energies <= 1 GeV) and dense matter, validity of transport models, opportunities for HI experiments with radioactive beams.

Note that immediately following this program the INT will run a related workshop: Flavor observations with supernova neutrinos.