Thermodynamically consistent accreted crust of neutron stars: The role of proton shell effects

TL;DR

This paper develops models of neutron star crusts that incorporate the hydrostatic/diffusion condition and proton shell effects, enhancing the microphysical understanding of accreted crusts for astrophysical observations.

Contribution

It introduces a new modeling approach for neutron star crusts that includes the nHD condition and proton shell effects, applicable with various nuclear physics models.

Findings

Models show the importance of proton shell effects in crust composition.

Inclusion of nHD condition affects crustal heating predictions.

Framework adaptable to advanced nuclear physics models.

Abstract

Observations of accreting neutron stars are widely used to constrain the microphysical properties of superdense matter. A key ingredient in this analysis is the heating associated with nuclear reactions in the outer layers of the neutron star (crust), as well as the equation of state and composition of these layers. As recently shown, the neutron hydrostatic/diffusion (nHD) condition is valid in the inner part of the crust, where some of the neutrons are not bound to the nuclei, and this condition should be properly incorporated into crustal models. Here we construct models of the accreted crust of a neutron star, taking into account the nHD condition and proton shell effects in nuclei. For numerical illustration, we employ the recently proposed compressible liquid drop model, which incorporates shell effects. However, our approach is general and can also be used in future studies relying on more sophisticated nuclear physics models.