Breaking properties of multicomponent neutron star crust

TL;DR

This paper investigates the breaking properties of multicomponent neutron star crusts, revealing that ionic composition significantly influences breaking stress, often exceeding that of single-component crystals, with potential differences of several times.

Contribution

It introduces the analysis of multicomponent Coulomb crystals in neutron star crusts and quantifies how ionic composition affects their breaking stress.

Findings

Breaking stress depends on ionic composition.

Multicomponent crystals have higher breaking stress than single-component ones.

Differences in breaking stress can reach a factor of several.

Abstract

We study breaking properties of a solid neutron star crust. We consider the case in which the crust at any fixed density consists of two types ions, forming a strongly ordered Coulomb crystal. It is shown that the breaking stress of a such matter noticeably depends on ionic composition, and it is typically larger than for a one-component crystal. The difference may reach a factor of several.