Properties of the outer crust of strongly magnetized neutron stars from Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov atomic mass models

TL;DR

This paper investigates how extremely strong magnetic fields in magnetars influence the composition and mass of their outer crusts, revealing significant effects on their physical properties using advanced atomic mass models.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov atomic mass model to study the outer crust of magnetars, highlighting the impact of Landau quantization on crust composition and mass.

Findings

Landau quantization significantly alters crust composition.

Magnetar crusts could be substantially more massive.

Strong magnetic fields influence the equation of state of crustal matter.

Abstract

The equilibrium properties of the outer crust of cold nonaccreting magnetars (i.e. neutron stars endowed with very strong magnetic fields) are studied using the latest experimental atomic mass data complemented with a microscopic atomic mass model based on the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method. The Landau quantization of electron motion caused by the strong magnetic field is found to have a significant impact on the composition and the equation of state of crustal matter. It is also shown that the outer crust of magnetars could be much more massive than that of ordinary neutron stars.