Deconfinement Phase Transition Heating and Thermal Evolution of Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a first-order deconfinement phase transition in neutron stars releases latent heat during spin-down, leading to higher temperatures and affecting their thermal evolution, especially in millisecond pulsars.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the thermal effects of deconfinement phase transition during neutron star spin-down, highlighting potential observational signatures.

Findings

Neutron stars can be heated to higher temperatures due to latent heat release.

The heating effect is significant in low-magnetic field millisecond pulsars.

Deconfinement transition influences the late-stage thermal evolution of neutron stars.

Abstract

The deconfinement phase transition will lead to the release of latent heat during spins down of neutron stars if the transition is the first-order one.We have investigated the thermal evolution of neutron stars undergoing such deconfinement phase transition. The results show that neutron stars may be heated to higher temperature.This feature could be particularly interesting for high temperature of low-magnetic field millisecond pulsar at late stage.