Welcome!

Neutron star is the densest known celestial object in the universe, and it involves all four fundamental forces of nature. During a core-collapse supernova, a massive star collapses under the weight of its self-gravity, resulting in electron capture by protons, which is a manifestation of the weak force. The resulting remnant contains a dense, neutron-rich matter, which is held together by the strong force and surrounded by a mysterious magnetosphere that is amplified during the collapse, which is a manifestation of the electromagnetic force. The strong interaction is the most challenging of the fundamental forces. The neutron star equation of state (EOS) plays a crucial role in our understanding of the laws of the strong interaction and the quantum chromodynamics phase diagram. My research focuses mainly on exploring and constraining the neutron star EOS by studying the properties of laboratory nuclei and astronomical observations. Recent detections of gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers, together with observations of massive neutron stars by Shapiro delay and the “black-widow” system, have placed new constraints on nuclear matter. Furthermore, the Lead Radius Experiment (PREX) and Calcium Radius Experiment (CREX) provide the cleanest probes of the neutron distribution inside Lead-208 and Calcium-40 nuclei.

An illustration of a neutron star.
Illustration from: Wikimedia.

About me

As a physicist working in the field of nuclear astrophysics, I received my undergraduate degree in physics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in 2015, and went on to earn my PhD from Stony Brook University in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. James Lattimer. After completing my doctoral studies, I worked as a postdoctoral research associate with Prof. Madappa Prakash at Ohio University, where I continued my research in neutron stars physics. In 2023, I joined the Network for Neutrino and Nuclear Astrophysics (N3AS) as a postdoctoral fellow.