Inés Pastor-Marazuela successfully defends thesis

© IPM

A little while ago, Inés Pastor-Marazuela (ASTRON + UvA) defended her thesis "Exploring the link between Neutron Stars and Fast Radio Bursts". This excellent body of work was the latest in a line of PhD theses (e.g., Drs. Mikhailov, Straal, Oostrum) based on one the world's most successful machines for finding and pinpointing Fast Radio Bursts: Apertif. In her hall-mark thorough and convincing style, Inés presented a large number of exciting results, all of which led to publications that are already out, or submitted -- She put new upper limits on radio emission from isolated neutron stars with LOFAR, supporting the existence of the "photon splitting death line" for magnetars. She discovered four new extragalactic neutron stars, in M31. Her simultaneous Apertif + LOFAR FRB discoveries made Nature. She found sub-millisecond quasi-periodic structure in an Apertif FRB and she presented the Apertif discovery that FRB shapes evolve with frequency. These results are introduced by one of the most readable and comprehensive Introductions to FRBs that I'm aware of, and that I heartily recommend to anyone interested in fast transients. Pick up a copy in Joeri's office. Congratulations, Dr Inés!