| Issue |
A&A
Volume 421, Number 3, July III 2004
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 1143 - 1148 | |
| Section | Stellar structure and evolution | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20040288 | |
| Published online | 29 June 2004 | |
Direct Urca process in a neutron star mantle
1
Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, Politekhnicheskaya 26, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia e-mail: yak@astro.ioffe.ru
2
Copernicus Astronomical Center, Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland e-mail: haensel@camk.edu.pl
3
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA e-mail: ognedin@stsci.edu
Corresponding author: M. E. Gusakov, gusakov@astro.ioffe.ru
Received:
17
February
2004
Accepted:
1
April
2004
We show that the direct Urca process of neutrino emission is allowed in two possible phases of nonspherical nuclei (inverse cylinders and inverse spheres) in the mantle of a neutron star near the crust-core interface. The process is open because neutrons and protons move in a periodic potential created by inhomogeneous nuclear structures. In this way the nucleons acquire large quasimomenta needed to satisfy momentum-conservation in the neutrino reaction. The appropriate neutrino emissivity in a nonsuperfluid matter is about 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than the emissivity of the modified Urca process in the stellar core. The process may noticeably accelerate the cooling of low-mass neutron stars.
Key words: stars: neutron / dense matter
© ESO, 2004
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