Gaps below strange star crusts

The gap caused by a strong electric field between the quark surface and nuclear crust of a strange star is studied in an improved model including gravity and pressure as well as electrostatic forces. The transition from gap to crust is followed in detail. The properties of the gap are investigated for a wide range of parameters assuming both color-flavor locked and non color-flavor locked strange star cores. The maximally allowed crust density is generally lower than that of neutron drip. Finite temperature is shown to increase the gap width, but the effect is significant only at extreme temperatures. Analytical approximations are derived and shown to provide useful fits to the numerical results.Comment: 12 pages incl. 14 figures. To appear in Physical Review

Neutron drip transition in accreting and nonaccreting neutron star crusts

The neutron-drip transition in the dense matter constituting the interior of neutron stars generally refers to the appearance of unbound neutrons as the matter density reaches some threshold density $\rho_\textrm{drip}$. This transition has been mainly studied under the cold catalyzed matter hypothesis. However, this assumption is unrealistic for accreting neutron stars. After examining the physical processes that are thought to be allowed in both accreting and nonaccreting neutron stars, suitable conditions for the onset of neutron drip are derived and general analytical expressions for the neutron drip density and pressure are obtained. Moreover, we show that the neutron-drip transition occurs at lower density and pressure than those predicted within the mean-nucleus approximation. This transition is studied numerically for various initial composition of the ashes from X-ray bursts and superbursts using microscopic nuclear mass models.Comment: 24 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Heating in the Accreted Neutron Star Ocean: Implications for Superburst Ignition

We perform a self-consistent calculation of the thermal structure in the crust of a superbursting neutron star. In particular, we follow the nucleosynthetic evolution of an accreted fluid element from its deposition into the atmosphere down to a depth where the electron Fermi energy is 20 MeV. We include temperature-dependent continuum electron capture rates and realistic sources of heat loss by thermal neutrino emission from the crust and core. We show that, in contrast to previous calculations, electron captures to excited states and subsequent gamma-emission significantly reduce the local heat loss due to weak-interaction neutrinos. Depending on the initial composition these reactions release up to a factor of 10 times more heat at densities < 10^{11} g/cc than obtained previously. This heating reduces the ignition depth of superbursts. In particular, it reduces the discrepancy noted by Cumming et al. between the temperatures needed for unstable 12C ignition on timescales consistent with observations and the reduction in crust temperature from Cooper pair neutrino emission.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, the Astrophysical Journal, in press (scheduled for v. 662). Revised from v1 in response to referee's comment

Comments on the paper ``Bare Quark Surfacees of Strange Stars and Electron-Positron Pair Emission''

In a recent paper (Ushov, PRL, 80, 230, 1998), it has been claimed that the bare surface of a strange star can emit electron-positron pairs of luminosity \~10^{51} ergs/s for about 10s. If true, obviously, this mechanism may explain the origin of cosmic Gamma Ray Bursts. However, we point out that such a mechanism is does not work because (i) if pair production really occurs the supposed pre-existing supercritical electric field will be quenched and this discharge process may at best release ~10^{24} ergs of electromagnetic energy, and (ii) there is no way by which the trapped core thermal energy of few 10^{52} ergs can be transmitted electromagnetically on a time scale of ~10s or even on a much larger time scale. The only way the hot core can cool on a time scale of ~10 s or much shorter is by the well known process of emission of nu-antinu pairs.Comment: Final version accepted in Phy. Rev. Lett. Main conclusion that the mechanism by Usov does not work remains unchanged, [email protected]

Neutron star radii and crusts: uncertainties and unified equations of state

The uncertainties in neutron star (NS) radii and crust properties due to our limited knowledge of the equation of state (EOS) are quantitatively analysed. We first demonstrate the importance of a unified microscopic description for the different baryonic densities of the star. If the pressure functional is obtained matching a crust and a core EOS based on models with different properties at nuclear matter saturation, the uncertainties can be as large as $\sim 30\%$ for the crust thickness and $4\%$ for the radius. Necessary conditions for causal and thermodynamically consistent matchings between the core and the crust are formulated and their consequences examined. A large set of unified EOS for purely nucleonic matter is obtained based on 24 Skyrme interactions and 9 relativistic mean-field nuclear parametrizations. In addition, for relativistic models 17 EOS including a transition to hyperonic matter at high density are presented. All these EOS have in common the property of describing a $2\;M_\odot$ star and of being causal within stable NS. A span of $\sim 3$ km and $\sim 4$ km is obtained for the radius of, respectively, $1.0\;M_\odot$ and $2.0\;M_\odot$ star. Applying a set of nine further constraints from experiment and ab-initio calculations the uncertainty is reduced to $\sim 1$ km and $2$ km, respectively. These residual uncertainties reflect lack of constraints at large densities and insufficient information on the density dependence of the EOS near the nuclear matter saturation point. The most important parameter to be constrained is shown to be the symmetry energy slope $L$ which exhibits a linear correlation with the stellar radius, particularly for masses $\sim 1.0\;M_\odot$. Potential constraints on $L$, the NS radius and the EOS from observations of thermal states of NS are also discussed. [Abriged]Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. C. Supplemental material not include

Measurements of greenhouse gases and related tracers at Bialystok tall tower station in Poland

Quasi-continuous, in-situ measurements of atmospheric CO2, O2/N2, CH4, CO, N2O, and SF6 have been performed since August 2005 at the tall tower station near Bialystok, in Eastern Poland, from five heights up to 300 m. Besides the in-situ measurements, flask samples are filled approximately weekly and measured at Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry for the same species and, in addition, for H2, Ar/N2 and the stable isotopes 13C and 18O in CO2. The in-situ measurement system was built based on commercially available analysers: a LiCor 7000 for CO2, a Sable Systems "Oxzilla" FC-2 for O2, and an Agilent 6890 gas chromatograph for CH4, CO, N2O and SF6. The system was optimized to run continuously with very little maintenance and to fulfill the precision requirements of the CHIOTTO project. The O2/N2 measurements in particular required special attention in terms of technical setup and quality assurance. The evaluation of the performance after more than three years of operation gave overall satisfactory results, proving that this setup is suitable for long term remote operation with little maintenance. The precision achieved for all species is within or close to the project requirements. The comparison between the in-situ and flask sample results, used to verify the accuracy of the in-situ measurements, showed no significant difference for CO2, O2/N2, CH4 and N2O, and a very small difference for SF6. The same comparison however revealed a statistically significant difference for CO, of about 6.5 ppb, for which the cause could not be fully explained. From more than three years of data, the main features at Bialystok have been characterized in terms of variability, trends, and seasonal and diurnal variations. CO2 and O2/N2 show large short term variability, and large diurnal signals during the warm seasons, which attenuate with the increase of sampling height. The trends calculated from this dataset, over the period August 2005 to December 2008, are 2.02±0.46 ppm/year for CO2 and -23.2±2.5 per meg/year for O2/N2. CH4, CO and N2O show also higher variability at the lower sampling levels, which in the case of CO is strongly seasonal. Diurnal variations in CH4, CO and N2O mole fractions can be observed during the warm season, due to the periodicity of vertical mixing combined with the diurnal cycle of anthropogenic emissions. We calculated increase rates of 10.1±4.4 ppb/year for CH4, (-8.3)±5.3 ppb/year for CO and 0.67±0.08 ppb/year for N2O. SF6 shows only few events, and generally no vertical gradients, which suggests that there are no significant local sources. A weak SF6 seasonal cycle has been detected, which most probably is due to the seasonality of atmospheric circulation. SF6 increased during the time of our measurement at an average rate of 0.29±0.01 ppt/year