2015/11/01 by S. Burrello, F. Gulminelli, Burrello, S. +8
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1511.00304
13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PRC
arxiv created 2015/11/01 · openalex publication_date 2015/11/01 · arxiv updated 2015/11/03 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Superfluidity in the crust is a key ingredient for the cooling properties of proto-neutron stars. Present theoretical calculations employ the quasi-particle mean-field Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with temperature dependent occupation numbers for the quasi-particle states. Finite temperature stellar matter is characterized by a whole distribution of different nuclear species. We want to assess the importance of this distribution on the calculation of heat capacity in the inner crust. Following a recent work, the Wigner-Seitz cell is mapped into a model with cluster degrees of freedom. The finite temperature distribution is then given by a statistical collection of Wigner-Seitz cells. We additionally introduce pairing correlations in the local density BCS approximation both in the homogeneous unbound neutron component, and in the interface region between clusters and neutrons. The heat capacity is calculated in the different baryonic density conditions corresponding to the inner crust, and in a temperature range varying from 100 KeV to 2 MeV. We show that accounting for the cluster distribution has a small effect at intermediate densities, but it considerably affects the heat capacity both close to the outer crust and close to the core. We additionally show that it is very important to consider the temperature evolution of the proton fraction for a quantitatively reliable estimation of the heat capacity.