Liquid-gas coexistence vs. energy minimization with respect to the density profile in the inhomogeneous inner crust of neutron stars

Abstract

We compare two approaches to describe the inner crust of neutron stars: on the one hand, the simple coexistence of a liquid (clusters) and a gas phase, and on the other hand, the energy minimization with respect to the density profile, including Coulomb and surface effects. We find that the phase-coexistence model gives a reasonable description of the densities in the clusters and in the gas, but the precision is not high enough to obtain the correct proton fraction at low baryon densities. We also discuss the surface tension and neutron skin obtained within the energy minimization.

7 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. C

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• Systematic analysis of inner crust composition using the extended Thomas-Fermi approximation with pairing correlations
• Unified equations of state for cold nonaccreting neutron stars with Brussels-Montreal functionals. V. Improved parametrization of the nucleon density distributions
• Equation of state of superfluid neutron matter with low-momentum interactions
• Superfluid fraction in the slab phase of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Superfluid fraction in the rod phase of the inner crust of neutron stars
• Effect of the equation of state for dilute neutron matter on the composition of the inner crust of neutron stars
• On variational trial functions in the extended Thomas-Fermi method