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In this 49-minute lecture, explore how diffusion and vortices in strongly coupled plasmas affect neutron star crusts with physicist Matt Caplan. Learn about the critical relationship between mechanical properties of neutron star crusts and their astrophysical emissions. Discover how diffusion coefficients in strongly coupled plasmas are essential for characterizing crustal elasticity despite being challenging to calculate. The presentation covers molecular dynamics simulations used to characterize diffusion in Yukawa crystals near melting, and examines how vortex pinning and unpinning processes in neutron star crusts may involve diffusive processes that require new coupled computational approaches. This Simons Foundation talk provides valuable insights into the microphysics needed for modeling and interpreting astronomical observations of neutron stars.
