Beyond Nuclear Pasta: Phase Transitions and Neutrino Opacity of Non-Traditional Pasta

TL;DR

This study investigates phase transitions and neutrino scattering in non-traditional nuclear pasta structures within neutron star crusts, revealing a solid-liquid transition and persistent neutrino opacity in the liquid phase despite structural differences.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical molecular dynamics model to analyze non-traditional nuclear pasta and its impact on neutrino opacity in neutron star crust conditions.

Findings

Solid-liquid phase transition identified in non-traditional pasta.

Neutrino scattering remains high in the liquid phase.

Structural morphology differs significantly from traditional pasta.

Abstract

In this work, we focus on different length scales within the dynamics of nucleons in conditions according to the neutron star crust, with a semiclassical molecular dynamics model, studying isospin symmetric matter at subsaturation densities. While varying the temperature, we find that a solid-liquid phase transition exists, that can be also characterized with a morphology transition. For higher temperatures, above this phase transition, we study the neutrino opacity, and find that in the liquid phase, the scattering of low momenta neutrinos remain high, even though the morphology of the structures differ significatively from those of the traditional nuclear pasta.