Anisotropic electron transport in the nuclear pasta phase

Abstract

The presence of nuclear pasta is expected to modify the transport properties in the mantle of neutron stars. The non-spherical geometry of the pasta nuclear clusters leads to anisotropies in the collision frequencies, impacting the thermal and electrical conductivity. We derive analytical expressions for the anisotropic collision frequencies using the Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation. The average parallel, perpendicular and Hall electrical conductivities are computed in the high-temperature regime above crustal melting, considering incoherent elastic electron-pasta scattering and randomly oriented pasta structures. Numerical values are obtained at different densities and temperatures by using the IUFSU parametrization of the non-linear Walecka model to determine the crustal structure. We find that the anisotropy of the collision frequencies grows with the length of the pasta structures and, independently of the magnetic field, the presence of rod and slab phases decreases the conductivity by more than one order of magnitude. Our numerical results indicate that, even if the pasta structures might survive above the crustal melting point, no strong anisotropies are to be expected in the conduction properties in this temperature regime, even in the presence of a very high magnetic field.

15 pages, 12 figures

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• Electrical conductivity of warm neutron star crust in magnetic fields: Neutron-drip regime
• Do short range correlations inhibit the appearance of the nuclear pasta?
• Nucleon Short-Range Correlations and High-Momentum Dynamics: Implications on the Equation of State of Dense Matter
• Existence of a supersymmetric extension of the gauged non-linear $\Sigma$-model and the transition from integrability to chaos