Spin polarization phenomena in dense neutron matter at a strong magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper investigates spin polarization in dense neutron matter under extremely strong magnetic fields, revealing stable and metastable states with opposite spin orientations and unusual entropy behavior influenced by effective mass dependencies.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of spin polarized states in neutron matter at high magnetic fields using the Skyrme interaction, highlighting the existence of stable negative and metastable positive polarization states.

Findings

Stable negative spin polarization at certain densities

Metastable positive spin polarization at high densities

Unusual entropy behavior related to effective masses

Abstract

Spin polarized states in neutron matter at strong magnetic fields up to $10^{18}$ G are considered in the model with the Skyrme effective interaction. Analyzing the self-consistent equations at zero temperature, it is shown that a thermodynamically stable branch of solutions for the spin polarization parameter as a function of density corresponds to the negative spin polarization when the majority of neutron spins are oriented oppositely to the direction of the magnetic field. Besides, it is found that in a strong magnetic field the state with the positive spin polarization can be realized as a metastable state at the high density region in neutron matter. At finite temperature, the entropy of the thermodynamically stable branch demonstrates the unusual behavior being larger than that for the nonpolarized state (at vanishing magnetic field) above certain critical density which is caused by the dependence of the entropy on the effective masses of neutrons in a spin polarized state.