2010/06/11 by A. I. Chugunov, C. J. Horowitz · 6 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Crust #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geophysics #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Neutron #Neutron star #Nuclear physics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Star (game theory) #Stress (linguistics) #astro-ph.SR #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00903.x
published as Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc.: Letters, 407, L54-L58 (2010) · 5 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters
arxiv created 2010/06/11 · openalex publication_date 2010/07/07 · arxiv updated 2011/08/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The breaking stress (the maximum of the stress–strain curve) of neutron star crust is important for neutron star physics including pulsar glitches, emission of gravitational waves from static mountains and flares from star quakes. We perform many molecular dynamic simulations of the breaking stress at different coupling parameters (inverse temperatures) and strain rates. We describe our results with the Zhurkov model of strength. We apply this model to estimate the breaking stress for time-scales ∼1 s–1 yr, which are most important for applications, but much longer than can be directly simulated. At these time-scales, the breaking stress depends strongly on the temperature. For coupling parameter Γ≲ 200 matter breaks at very small stress, if it is applied for a few years. This viscoelastic creep can limit the lifetime of mountains on neutron stars. We also suggest an alternative model of time-scale-independent breaking stress, which can be used to estimate an upper limit on the breaking stress.