How accurately can the Extended Thomas-Fermi method describe the inner crust of a neutron star?
arXiv:2002.01839 · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1668/1/012037
Abstract
We perform a systematic comparison between the results obtained by solving fully self-consistently the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov equations, and those obtained using the semi-classical Extended Thomas-Fermi method, for various Wigner-Seitz cells within the inner crust of a neutron star. The lack of pairing correlations in the semi-classical approach leads to a large discrepancy between the two approaches. This discrepancy is well beyond the error of the quantum-mechanical calculation, and is related to spurious shell effects in the neutron gas.
10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Physics: Conference Series