Neutron superfluidity and the structure of the neutron star inner crust

Abstract

A self-consistent quantum approach to describe the inner crust structure of neutron stars is developed within the Wigner-Seitz (WS) approximation, based on the generalized energy functional method involving explicitly neutron and proton pairing correlations. The energy functional is constructed by matching the realistic phenomenological nuclear functional by Fayans et al. for describing the pseudonucleus in the center of the WS cell with the one calculated microscopically for neutron matter within the Brueckner approach with the Argonne v18 force. The microscopic description of the neutron superfluidity is based on the BCS approach with the same v18 force. Many-body theory corrections to the BCS method (the correlation and self-energy ones) are included in the calculation scheme in an approximate way. A wide region of average densities was investigated corresponding to the Fermi momentum values kF = 0.6–1.2 fm−1