Minimal models of cooling neutron stars with accreted envelopes |
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| Authors: | A D Kaminker M E Gusakov D G Yakovlev O Y Gnedin |
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| Institution: | Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, Politekhnicheskaya 26, 194021 Saint-Petersburg, Russia;Ohio State University, Department of Astronomy, 140W 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA |
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| Abstract: | We study the 'minimal' cooling scenario of superfluid neutron stars with nucleon cores, where the direct Urca process is forbidden and enhanced cooling is produced by neutrino emission due to the Cooper pairing of neutrons. Extending our recent previous work, we include the effects of surface accreted envelopes of light elements. We employ the phenomenological density-dependent critical temperatures T cp(ρ) and T cnt(ρ) of singlet-state proton and triplet-state neutron pairing in a stellar core, as well as the critical temperature T cns(ρ) of singlet-state neutron pairing in a stellar crust. We show that the presence of accreted envelopes simplifies the interpretation of observations of thermal radiation from isolated neutron stars in the scenario of our recent previous work and widens the class of models for nucleon superfluidity in neutron star interiors consistent with the observations. |
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| Keywords: | stars: evolution stars: neutron |
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