Microscopic calculation of the pinning energy of a vortex in the inner crust of a neutron star

Abstract

The structure of a vortex in the inner crust of a pulsar is calculated microscopically in the Wigner-Seitz cell approximation, simulating the conditions of the inner crust of a cold, non-accreting neutron star, in which a lattice of nuclei coexists with a sea of superfluid neutrons. The calculation is based on the axially deformed Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov framework, using effective interactions. The present work extends and improves previous studies in four ways: i) it allows for the axial deformation of protons induced by the large deformation of neutrons due to the appearance of vortices; ii) it includes the effect of Coulomb exchange; iii) considers the possible effects of the screening of the pairing interaction; and iv) it improves the numerical treatment. We also demonstrate that the binding energy of the nucleus-vortex system can be used as a proxy to the pinning energy of a vortex and discuss in which conditions this applies. From our results, we can estimate the mesoscopic pinning forces per unit length acting on vortices. We obtain values ranging between $10^{14}$ to $10^{16}$ dyn/cm, consistent with previous findings.

Paper submitted for publication

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Insights into the physics of neutron star interiors from pulsar glitches
• Quantum vortices in fermionic superfluids: from ultracold atoms to neutron stars
• Gapless neutron superfluidity in the crust of the accreting neutron stars KS 1731-260 and MXB 1659-29
• Exploring nuclear force with pulsar glitch observation