Structure of the inner crust of neutron stars: crystal lattice or disordered phase ?

Abstract

We investigate the inner crust structure of neutron stars using the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock approach with the Coulomb interaction treated beyond the Wigner-Seitz approximation. Our results suggest that the shell effects associated with unbound neutrons play an important role and, in particular, lead to complicated phase transition pattern between various nuclear phases (as a function of the density). Namely, we show that the relative energies of different phases are rapidly oscillating functions of the neutron density. In the semiclassical approach this behavior is explained as an interference effect due to periodic orbits of similar lengths. We discuss also the dependence of the shell effects on pairing correlations.

20 pages, 5 figures

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