2016/08/19 by Mikhail V. Beznogov, M. V. Beznogov, M. Fortin +3 · 14 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Neutron star #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2075
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 463(2), 1307-1313 (Oxford University Press) · 8 pages, 4 figures, MNRAS, accepted
openalex publication_date 2016/08/19 · arxiv created 2016/08/26 · arxiv updated 2016/09/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the effects of heat blanketing envelopes of neutron stars on their cooling. To this aim, we perform cooling simulations using newly constructed models of the envelopes composed of binary ion mixtures (H–He, He–C, C–Fe) varying the mass of lighter ions (H, He or C) in the envelope. The results are compared with those calculated using the standard models of the envelopes which contain the layers of lighter (accreted) elements (H, He and C) on top of the Fe layer, varying the mass of accreted elements. The main effect is that the chemical composition of the envelopes influences their thermal conductivity and, hence, thermal insulation of the star. For illustration, we apply these results to estimate the internal temperature of the Vela pulsar and to study the cooling of neutron stars of ages of 105–106 yr at the photon cooling stage. The uncertainties of the cooling models associated with our poor knowledge of chemical composition of the heat insulating envelopes strongly complicate theoretical reconstruction of the internal structure of cooling neutron stars from observations of their thermal surface emission.