Fast neutron star cooling in light of the PREX-2 experiment

TL;DR

This paper investigates how recent PREX-2 experiment results, indicating a higher nuclear symmetry energy, influence neutron star cooling rates through the direct Urca process, aligning theoretical models with observational data.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of PREX-2 findings on neutron star cooling models, highlighting the activation of the direct Urca process in dense matter.

Findings

Most isolated neutron star thermal profiles match the cooling predictions with the new symmetry energy values.

Superfluidity suppression effects are compatible with observed cooling data.

The direct Urca process can operate in canonical mass neutron stars under the new nuclear physics constraints.

Abstract

The nuclear symmetry energy and its behaviour with density has been recently evaluated with enhanced value by PREX-2 experiment. This new values enables direct Urca neutrino emission process to be functioning in the dense matter inside neutron stars. With this new outlook we study the cooling rate of canonical mass neutron stars and compare with available observational cooling data. We find most of the isolated neutron star thermal profile is compatible with the cooling of canonical mass star including superfluidity suppression.