Nuclear matter in the crust of neutron stars

P. Gögelein, H. Müther
2007 Physical Review C  
The properties of inhomogeneous nuclear matter are investigated considering the self-consistent Skyrme Hartree-Fock approach with inclusion of pairing correlations. For a comparison we also consider a relativistic mean field approach. The inhomogeneous infinite matter is described in terms of cubic Wigner-Seitz cells, which leads to a smooth transition to the limit of homogeneous nuclear matter. The possible existence of various structures in the so-called pasta phase is investigated within
more » ... self-consistent approach and a comparison is made to results obtained within the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Results for the proton abundances and the pairing properties are discussed for densities for which clustering phenomena are obtained.
doi:10.1103/physrevc.76.024312 fatcat:umu765anefez7klmjclrpqk4oi