Diffusive Nuclear Burning in Neutron Star Envelopes
Astrophysics
2009-11-07 v1
Abstract
We present a new mode of hydrogen burning on neutron stars (NSs) called diffusive nuclear burning (DNB). In DNB, the burning occurs in the exponentially suppressed tail of hydrogen that extends to the hotter regions of the envelope where protons are readily captured. Diffusive nuclear burning changes the compositional structure of the envelope on timescales , much shorter than otherwise expected. This mechanism is applicable to the physics of young pulsars, millisecond radio pulsars (MSPs) and quiescent low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs).
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0211028,
title = {Diffusive Nuclear Burning in Neutron Star Envelopes},
author = {P. Chang and L. Bildsten},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0211028},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, to appear in ASP Conf. Ser., Radio Pulsars, ed. M. Bailes, D. J. Nice, & S. E. Thorsett (proceedings of August 2002 meeting in Crete)