Nuclear composition and heating in accreting neutron-star crusts
Abstract
Nuclear reactions in accreting neutron-star crusts and the heat release accompanying them are studied, under different assumptions concerning the composition of the outermost layer formed of the ashes of X-ray bursts. Particular examples of ashes containing nuclides with A ~ 90-110 are considered and compared with a standard A=56 case. In all cases, evolution of a crust shell is followed from 10^8 g/cm^3 to a few times 10^{13} g/cm^3. The total crustal heating produced in the non-equilibrium processes in the accreting crust is 1.1-1.5 MeV per one accreted nucleon. The composition of the accreted crust at densities exceeding the threshold for the pycnonuclear fusion is essentially independent of the assumed initial composition of the X-ray burst ashes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0305220,
title = {Nuclear composition and heating in accreting neutron-star crusts},
author = {P. Haensel and J. L. Zdunik},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0305220},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters