Date:
Location:
CP 179
Speaker(s) / Presenter(s):
Dr. Mohammadreza Zakeri (UK)
Pulsars have become fertile ground for unraveling the mysteries of fundamental physics. Among the many intriguing avenues of exploration is the consideration of baryon number violation (BNV), a phenomenon linked to questions such as the baryon asymmetry problem. Stringent constraints on BNV result from its lack of observation in experiments, making the search for its consequences in astrophysical environments a natural step to explore. In this presentation, we delve into the effects of a particular class of slow BNV, one that leads to quasi-equilibrium evolutions, on the spin parameters of pulsars. These parameters encompass vital characteristics such as spin-down rates, the second derivative of frequency, and pulsar braking indices. Within pulsars, the existence of BNV may manifest as anomalies in the second derivative of pulsar spin frequency, transitions between states of spinning down and spinning up, and it can give rise to a diverse range of both positive and negative braking indices. We explore the prospects of detecting these effects in the wake of the recent discovery of a stochastic gravitational wave background by NANOGrav.