Landau and Neutron Stars D.G. Yakovlev Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, St.-Petersburg, Russia Ladek Zdroj, February 2008, G. Baym, P. Haensel, C.J. Pethick

Hisrory of Science: Who predicted neutron stars? Neutron stars Rosenfeld anecdote Discovery of a neutron Baade and Zwicky Landau and Bohr Landau – world line Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion Summary

NEUTRON STARS Chandra image of the Vela pulsar wind nebula NASA/PSU Pavlov et al Consist predominantly of closely packed neutrons which form one giant nucleus with N~10 57

LANDAU (DAU)

Shapiro and Teukolsky (1983), page 242 ROSENFELDS ANECDOTE

Gordon Baym (2000)

Rosenfeld L In: Astrophysics & Gravitation, Proceeding of the 16 th Solvay Conference on Physics (1973), Brussels, Belgium, p. 174 Leon Rosenfeld ( )

DISCOVERY OF NEUTRON Neutron: predicted by Rutherford (Proc. Roy. Soc. A97, 374, 1920) Discovered by Chadwick (James Chadwick, , Cavendish Laboratory) J. Chadwick. Possible existence of a neutron. Nature 129, 312, 1932 (received Feb. 17, 1932; published Feb. 27, 1932) J. Chadwick. The existence of a neutron. Proc. Roy. Soc. London A136, (received May 10, 1932; published June 1, 1932) Nobel Prize – 1935

A letter of Chadwick to Bohr (24 February 1932)

Baade and Zwicky – Prediction W. Baade (Mt. Wilson Observatory) F. Zwicky (Caltech) The meeting of American Physical Society (Stanford, December 15-16, 1933) Published in Physical Review (January 15, 1934)

Phys. Rev. 46, 76, 1934 July 1

Los Angeles Times January 19, 1934 A.G.W. Cameron, recalling his postdoc academic year at Caltech reminds (Cameron, 1999): For years Fritz [Zwicky] had been pushing his ideas about neutron stars to anyone who would listen and had been universally ignored. I believe that the part of the problem was his personality, which implied strongly that people were idiots if they did not believe in neutron stars.

LANDAU – World Line 1908, 22 January – born in Baku 1922 – entered Azerbaijan State University 1927, January – graduated from Leningrad State University and became graduate student of Leningrad Physical Technical Institute

LANDAU – World Line 1929, January – 2 year scientific trip over Europe: Berlin, Gottingen, Lepzig, Copenhagen, Cambridge, Zurich (A. Einstein, M. Born, W. Heisenberg, N. Bohr, W. Pauli, E. Schrodinger, P. Dirac, P. Kapitsa) 1932, August – to Kharkov (Kharkov Physical Technical Institute – chief of Theoretical Department, Kharkov Polytechnical Institute – chief of Theoretical Physics Department, Kharkov State University – chief of General Physics Department). Doctor of Sciences – without defence. Theoretical minimum. Course of theoretical physics 1937, February – from Kharkov to Moscow (Institute of Physical Problems) 1938, 28 April – 1939, 29 April – Landau in prison 1939 and further: theory of superfluid liquid helium, quantum liquid theory, Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, Landau Fermi-liquid theory, 2 nd order phase transitions, Landau collision integral, Landau damping, combined parity conservation,… 1962, 7 January – car accident 1962, November – Nobel Prize 1968, 1 April, 21.50…

Bohr in the USSR 1934, May (Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov) 1937 (half-year tour – USA, Japan, China, USSR) 1961, May (Moscow University) Landau in Copenhagen 1930, 8 April – 3 May 1931, 25 February – 19 March 1933, 18 September – 3 October 1934, 1 June – 18 July LANDAU AND BOHR

28 апреля 1938, Москва «Товарищ Сталин! Сегодня утром арестовали научного сотрудника Института Л.Д.Ландау. Несмотря на свои 29 лет, он вместе с Фоком – самые Крупные физики-теоретики у нас в Союзе. Его работы по магнетизму и по квантовой теории поля часто цитируются как в нашей, так и в заграничной литературе. Только в прошлом году он опубликовал одну замечательную работу, где первый указал на новый источник энергии звездного лучеиспускания… Kapitsa and Landau …Также, мне кажется, следует учесть характер Ландау, который, попросту говоря, скверный. Он задира и забияка, любит искать у других ошибки и, когда находит их, в особенности у важных старцев, вроде наших академиков, то начинает непочтительно дразнить. Этим он нажил много врагов. У нас в институте с ним было нелегко, хотя он поддавался уговорам и становился лучше …»

EPITAPH Scientist: 98 publications Quantum mechanics; solid-state physics; 2 nd -order phase transitions; Fermi-liquid theory; superfluidity; cosmic rays; hydrodynamics; quantum field theory; elementary particles; plasma physics Teacher – School: Pomeranchuk; E. & I. Lifshits; Abrikosov; Migdal; Akhiezer; Gorkov; Gribov; Ginzburg; Dzyaloshinsky; Pitaevsky; Khalatnikov; Berestetsky; Kompaneets; Smorodinsky; Andreev Teacher – Course Only in the USSR!

Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion Vol. 1, No. 2, , 1932 Written: Feb. 1931, Zurich Received: Jan. 7, 1932 Published: Feb Paper by Landau – before discovery of neutron

S. Chandrasekhar. The maximum mass of ideal white dwarfs, ApJ 74, 81, 1931 (submitted: Nov. 12, 1930) E.C. Stoner, Phil. Mag. 9, 944, 1930 One should violate Quantum Mechanics!

This is true!!! Removed in reprinting

SUMMARY Landau, Bohr and Rosenfeld did discuss a possible existence of stars which are very dense, and where atomic nuclei form one giant nucleus; it was in FebruaryMarch 1931, in Copenhagen, one year before the discovery of the neutron Landau, Bohr and Rosenfeld discussed a paper written by Landau but not published then. Landau published it one year later, in February 1932, the same month when the discovery of the neutron was announced Landau did not predict neutron stars, only superficially anticipated them (as only a genius could do)