Impact of the symmetry energy on the outer crust of non-accreting neutron stars

Abstract

The composition and equation of state of the outer crust of non-accreting neutron stars is computed using accurate nuclear mass tables. The main goal of the present study is to understand the impact of the symmetry energy on the structure of the outer crust. First, a simple "toy model" is developed to illustrate the competition between the electronic density and the symmetry energy. Then, realistic mass tables are used to show that models with a stiff symmetry energy - those that generate large neutron skins for heavy nuclei - predict a sequence of nuclei that are more neutron-rich than their softer counterparts. This result may be phrased in the form of a correlation: the larger the neutron skin of 208Pb, the more exotic the composition of the outer crust.

21 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review C

References in corpus (5)

• Neutron-Rich Nuclei in Heaven and Earth
• Neutron star oscillations and QPOs during magnetar flares
• The Neutron Star Crust: Nuclear Physics Input
• Validating relativistic models of nuclear structure against theoretical, experimental, and observational constraints
• High frequency oscillations during magnetar flares

Cited by in corpus (28)

• GW190814: Impact of a 2.6 solar mass neutron star on nucleonic equations of state
• Pulsar Glitches: The Crust may be Enough
• Improved Treatment of Dark Matter Capture in Neutron Stars
• Warming Nuclear Pasta with Dark Matter: Kinetic and Annihilation Heating of Neutron Star Crusts
• Improved Treatment of Dark Matter Capture in Neutron Stars II: Leptonic Targets
• Impact of the neutron star crust on the tidal polarizability
• Improved Treatment of Dark Matter Capture in Neutron Stars III: Nucleon and Exotic Targets
• Validating neural-network refinements of nuclear mass models
• Constraints on the symmetry energy from observational probes of the neutron star crust
• Dense and Hot QCD at Strong Coupling
• Universal relations for differentially rotating relativistic stars at the threshold to collapse
• EoS for hot neutron stars
• Binary and ternary ionic compounds in the outer crust of a cold nonaccreting neutron star
• Universal relations for rapidly rotating cold and hot hybrid star
• Neutron stars and the dense matter equation of state: from microscopic theory to macroscopic observations
• Impact of statistical uncertainties on the composition of the outer crust of a neutron star
• Bayesian refinement of covariant energy density functionals
• Electron exchange and polarization effects on electron captures and neutron emissions by nuclei in white dwarfs and neutron stars
• Crustal properties of a neutron star within an effective relativistic mean-field model
• A new statistical method for the structure of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Analytical determination of the structure and nuclear abundances of the outer crust of a cold nonaccreted neutron star
• Role of the symmetry energy on the neutron-drip transition in accreting and nonaccreting neutron stars
• The Neutron Star Outer Crust Equation of State: A Machine Learning approach
• Improved Nuclear Physics Near $A=61$ Refines Urca Neutrino Luminosities in Accreted Neutron Star Crusts
• Constraining Accreted Neutron Star Crust Shallow Heating with the Inferred Depth of Carbon Ignition in X-ray Superbursts
• The origin of the elements and other implications of gravitational wave detection for nuclear physics
• Unified Equation of State for Neutron Stars Based on the Gogny Interaction
• The pygmy dipole strength, the neutron radius of ${}^{208}$Pb and the symmetry energy