Christopher Thompson
PI (Neutron Stars)
I have been on the faculty of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto since 2000. I have a longstanding interest in the astrophysical manifestations of super-QED magnetic fields (the magnetar phenomenon), including their amplification in dense matter and their dissipation in relativistic outflows (gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts). My recent work connected to SCEECS investigates the imprint of nonlinear QED processes on plasma and radiation in ultrastrong magnetic fields, the global elastic/plastic properties of magnetars, resisitive instabilities as a driver of coherent pulsed radio emission, the interaction of plasma turbulence with strongly magnetized shocks, and the generation of magnetic helicity in rotating stars. I received my B.Sc. from Caltech and a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton.
Five recent relevant references
C. Thompson and R.C. Duncan 1995. The Soft Gamma Repeaters as
Very Strongly Magnetized Neutron Stars. - I. Radiative Mechanism
for Outbursts. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 275, 255-300.
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/275/2/255/993664
C. Thompson and O. Blaes 1998. Magnetohydrodynamics in the Extreme Relativistic Limit.
Physical Review D, 57, 6, 3219-3234.
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.57.3219
C. Thompson, H. Yang, and N. Ortiz 2017. Global Crustal Dynamics of
Magnetars in Relation to Their Bright X-ray Outbursts. Astrophysical Journal, 841, 54, 31 pp.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aa6c30/pdf
C. Thompson and A. Kostenko 2020. Pair Plasma in Super-QED
Magnetic Fields and the Hard X-ray/Optical Emission of Magnetars.
Astrophysical Journal, 904, 184, 23 pp.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/abbe87/pdf
C. Thompson 2023. Direct Emission of Strong Radio Pulses during Magnetar Flares.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 519, 497, 22 pp.
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/519/1/497/6880171