Unified description of neutron superfluidity in the neutron-star crust with analogy to anisotropic multi-band BCS superconductors

Abstract

The neutron superfluidity in the inner crust of a neutron star has been traditionally studied considering either homogeneous neutron matter or only a small number of nucleons confined inside the spherical Wigner-Seitz cell. Drawing analogies with the recently discovered multi-band superconductors, we have solved the anisotropic multi-band BCS gap equations with Bloch boundary conditions, thus providing a unified description taking consistently into account both the free neutrons and the nuclear clusters. Calculations have been carried out using the effective interaction underlying our recent Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov nuclear mass model HFB-16. We have found that even though the presence of inhomogeneities lowers the neutron pairing gaps, the reduction is much less than that predicted by previous calculations using the Wigner-Seitz approximation. We have studied the disappearance of superfluidity with increasing temperature. As an application we have calculated the neutron specific heat, which is an important ingredient for modeling the thermal evolution of newly-born neutron stars. This work provides a new scheme for realistic calculations of superfluidity in neutron-star crusts.

15 pages, 31 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review C

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Cited by in corpus (20)

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• Effective contact pairing forces from realistic calculations in infinite homogeneous nuclear matter
• Superfluidity and Superconductivity in Neutron Stars
• Low-energy collective excitations in the neutron star inner crust
• Entrainment in Superfluid Neutron Star Crusts: Hydrodynamic Description and Microscopic Origin
• Collective Modes in a Superfluid Neutron Gas within the Quasiparticle Random-Phase Approximation
• Wigner-Seitz cells in neutron star crust with finite range interactions
• Properties of a quantum vortex in neutron matter
• Pairing properties and specific heat of the inner crust of a neutron star
• Gapless superfluidity in neutron stars: Normal-fluid fraction
• Superfluid fraction in the slab phase of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Gapless superfluidity in neutron stars: Thermal properties
• Heat capacity of low density neutron matter: from quantum to classical regimes
• Anderson-Bogoliubov phonon in inner crust of neutron stars: Dipole excitation in spherical Wigner-Seitz cell
• BCS-BEC Crossover Effects and Pseudogap in Neutron Matter
• Superfluid fraction in the crystalline crust of a neutron star: role of BCS pairing
• Role of neutron pairing with density-gradient dependence in the semi-microscopic treatment of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Superfluid fraction in the rod phase of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Superfluid neutron matter with a twist
• Flat band effects on the ground-state BCS-BEC crossover in atomic Fermi gases in a quasi-two-dimensional Lieb lattice