Fast cooling and internal heating in hyperon stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates how internal heating mechanisms, including magnetic field decay and phenomenological sources, can explain the observed thermal luminosity of neutron stars with hyperons, by modeling different magnetic configurations and superfluidity effects.

Contribution

It introduces models of internal heating in hyperon-rich neutron stars to reconcile theoretical cooling rates with observational data, considering various magnetic field configurations and superfluidity assumptions.

Findings

A thermal power of ~10^{34} erg/s matches observations of older neutron stars.

Joule heating from crust-confined magnetic fields can sustain observed luminosities.

Magnetic configurations with mixed poloidal-toroidal fields or strong poloidal fields are effective.

Abstract

Neutron star models with maximum mass close to $2 \ M_{\odot}$ reach high central densities, which may activate nucleonic and hyperon direct Urca neutrino emission. To alleviate the tension between fast theoretical cooling rates and thermal luminosity observations of moderately magnetized, isolated thermally-emitting stars (with $L_{\gamma} \gtrsim 10^{31}$ erg s$^{-1}$ at $t \gtrsim 10^{5.3}$ yr), some internal heating source is required. The power supplied by the internal heater is estimated for both a phenomenological source in the inner crust and Joule heating due to magnetic field decay, assuming different superfluidity models and compositions of the outer stellar envelope. It is found that a thermal power of $W(t) \approx 10^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$ allows neutron star models to match observations of moderately magnetized, isolated stars with ages $t \gtrsim 10^{5.3}$ yr. The requisite $W(t)$ can be supplied by Joule heating due to crust-confined initial magnetic configurations with (i) mixed poloidal-toroidal fields, with surface strength $B_{\textrm{dip}} = 10^{13}$ G at the pole of the dipolar poloidal component and $\sim 90$ per cent of the magnetic energy stored in the toroidal component; and (ii) poloidal-only configurations with $B_{\textrm{dip}} = 10^{14}$ G.