How neutron stars create quantum turbulence as they cool

Neutron stars cool rapidly in their first moments, triggering a superfluid phase transition in their cores. Using the Kibble-Zurek mechanism—a framework originally developed to explain cosmic string formation—Sauls calculates that this non-equilibrium transition generates a dense tangle of quantized vortices. The result: a turbulent superfluid state with measurable consequences for how neutron stars evolve and radiate energy.