Plasma cutoff and enhancement of radiative transitions in dense stellar matter

Abstract

We study plasma effects on radiative transitions (e.g., decay of excited states of atoms or atomic nuclei) in a dense plasma at the transition frequencies $\omega \lesssim {\omega }_p$ (where ${\omega }_p$ is the electron plasma frequency). The decay goes through four channels -- the emission of real transverse and longitudinal plasmons as well as the emission of virtual transverse and longitudinal plasmons with subsequent absorption of such plasmons by the plasma. The emission of real plasmons dies out at $\omega \le {\omega }_p$, but the processes with virtual plasmons strongly enhance the radiative decay. Applications of these results to radiative processes in white dwarf cores and neutron star envelopes are discussed.

arXiv comment23 pages, 4 figures; accepted by Phys. Rev. D

References in corpus (7)

• The Properties of X-Ray and Optical Light Curves of X-Ray Novae
• Crustal Heating and Quiescent Emission from Transiently Accreting Neutron Stars
• Heating in the Accreted Neutron Star Ocean: Implications for Superburst Ignition
• Models of crustal heating in accreting neutron stars
• Internal temperatures and cooling of neutron stars with accreted envelopes
• Neutron reactions in accreting neutron stars: a new pathway to efficient crust heating
• The neutrino emission due to plasmon decay and neutrino luminosity of white dwarfs

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Nuclear Physics of the Outer Layers of Accreting Neutron Stars
• Electron-ion scattering in dense multi-component plasmas: application to the outer crust of an accreting neutron star
• Neutron degeneracy and plasma physics effects on radiative neutron captures in neutron star crust
• Probing ALP-photon couplings in Neutron Stars: Scalar versus pseudoscalar cases