The Nucleon Direct Urca Processes in a Cooling Neutron Star

Abstract

In the relativistic mean field approximation, the relativistic energy losses of the nucleon direct Urca processes are studied in the degenerate baryon matter of neutron stars. We investigate the effects of hyperon degrees of freedom and the isovector scalar interaction which is considered by exchanging δ meson on the nucleon direct Urca processes in neutron star matter. The results indicate that the existence of hyperons decreases the abundance of protons and leptons and can sharply suppress the neutrino emissivity of the nucleon direct Urca processes, while it has only a little influence on the neutrino luminosity for a fixed neutron star whether δ mesons appear in a neutron star or not. However, the presence of δ mesons can result in obvious growth in the neutrino emissivity and luminosity which will speed up the cooling rate for the nonsuperfluid neutron star.