Brief Research Summary

I use Bayesian inference to study the microphysics of neutron star interiors. In particular, my work seeks to constrain the possibility of asymmetric dark matter (a model of dark matter that assumes the origins of dark matter is similar to that of baryonic matter) in/around neutron stars using Bayesian inference and mass-radius measurements. My work also investigates the impact of neutron star measurements (i.e., mass-tidal deformability and mass-radius) and chiral effective field theory calculations on the cold dense matter equation of state without dark matter. 

Below is a list of scientific papers that I am a part of.

Scientific Works and Publications

Currently, you can view one of my works for free on my arXiv page, but I will update the ones that don't appear as soon as possible.  I strive to ensure that all of my first author papers are as close to the (soon to be) published versions as possible. Below I list all of the works in which I am a part of and an asterix (*) appears next to the works that I am the first author of.

• (*) N. Rutherford, C. Prescod-Weinstein, and A.L. Watts. “Probing fermionic asymmetric dark matter cores using global neutron star properties,” in preparation. 

• (*) N. Rutherford, M. Mendes, I. Svensson, A. Schwenk, A.L Watts, K. Hebeler, C. Prescod-Weinstein, D. Choudhury, G. Raaijmakers, T. Salmi, P. Timmerman, S. Vinciguerra, S. Guillot, and J. Lattimer. “Constraining the dense matter equation of state with new NICER mass-radius measurements and new chiral effective field theory inputs,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Accepted June 2024. 

• D.Choudhury, T. Salmi, S. Vinciguerra, T.E. Riley, Y. Kini, A.L. Watts, B. Dorsman, S. Bogdanov, S. Guillot, P.S. Ray, D. Reardon, R.A. Remillard, A.V. Bilous, D. Huppenkothen, J.M. Lattimer, N. Rutherford, Z. Arzoumanian, K. Gendreau, S.M. Morsink, and W.C.G. Ho. “A NICER view of the nearest and brightest millisecond pulsar: PSR J0437−4715,” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, accepted June 2024. 

• G. Raaijmakers, P. Timmerman, N. Rutherford, T. Salmi, A.L. Watts, and C. Prescod-Weinstein. “NEoST: A Python package for nested sampling of the neutron star equation of state,” Journal of Open Source Software, submitted January 2024. 

• (*) N. Rutherford, G. Raaijmakers, C. Prescod-Weinstein, and A.L. Watts. “Constraining bosonic asymmetric dark matter with neutron star mass-radius measurements,” Phys. Rev. D., 107:103051, May 2023. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.107.103051. 

Photo credit: Hannah Olds