Thermal luminosities of cooling neutron stars

TL;DR

This paper surveys observed ages, temperatures, and luminosities of middle-aged neutron stars to compare with cooling theories, highlighting that models with weak neutron superfluidity align better with observations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive catalog of neutron star cooling data and compares it with theoretical models, emphasizing the role of superfluidity in neutron star cores.

Findings

Better agreement with observations when neutron superfluidity is weak.

The catalog includes new spectral analysis results.

Cooling curves are consistent with data for certain models.

Abstract

Ages and thermal luminosities of neutron stars, inferred from observations, can be interpreted with the aid of the neutron star cooling theory to gain information on the properties of superdense matter in neutron-star interiors. We present a survey of estimated ages, surface temperatures and thermal luminosities of middle-aged neutron stars with relatively weak or moderately strong magnetic fields, which can be useful for these purposes. The catalogue includes results selected from the literature, supplemented with new results of spectral analysis of a few cooling neutron stars. The data are compared with the theory. We show that overall agreement of theoretical cooling curves with observations improves substantially for models where neutron superfluidity in stellar core is weak.