Nuclear pasta in hot dense matter and its implications for neutrino scattering

Abstract

We find that the abundance of large clusters of nucleons in neutron-rich matter at sub-nuclear density is greatly reduced by finite temperature effects when matter is close to beta-equilibrium. Large nuclei and exotic non-spherical nuclear configurations called pasta, favored in the vicinity of the transition to uniform matter at $T=0$, dissolve at relatively low temperature. For matter close to beta-equilibrium we find that the pasta melting temperature is $T_m^{\beta }\simeq 4\pm 1$~MeV for realistic equations of state. The mechanism for pasta dissolution is discussed, and in general $T_m^{\beta }$ is shown to be sensitive to the proton fraction. We find that coherent neutrino scattering from nuclei and pasta makes a modest contribution to the opacity under the conditions encountered in supernovae and neutron star mergers. Implications for neutrino signals from galactic supernovae are briefly discussed.

9 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

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• Neutrinos and nucleosynthesis of elements
• A Survey of Nuclear Pasta in the Intermediate Density Regime I: Shapes and Energies
• Domains and defects in nuclear "pasta"
• Nuclear pasta structures and symmetry energy
• Dense matter equation of state for neutron star mergers
• A Survey of Nuclear Pasta in the Intermediate Density Regime: Structure Functions for Neutrino Scattering
• Hot and Dense Matter Equation of State Probability Distributions for Astrophysical Simulations
• Nuclear pasta and symmetry energy in the relativistic point-coupling model
• Nuclear pasta in hot and dense matter and its influence on the equation of state for astrophysical simulations
• Nuclear pasta structures at high temperatures
• Tasting Nuclear Pasta Made with Classical Molecular Dynamics Simulations
• Stochastic Dynamics and Bound States of Heavy Impurities in a Fermi Bath