Nuclear “pasta” structures in low-density nuclear matter and properties of the neutron-star crust

摘要

In neutron star crust, non-uniform structure of nuclear matter is expected,which is called the "pasta" structure. From the recent studies of giant flaresin magnetars, these structures might be related to some observables andphysical quantities of the neutron star crust. To investigate the abovequantities, we numerically explore the pasta structures with a fullythreedimensional geometry and study the properties of low-density nuclearmatter, based on the relativistic mean-field model and the Thomas-Fermiapproximation. We observe typical pasta structures for fixed protonnumber-fraction and two of them for cold catalyzed matter. We also discuss thecrystalline configuration of "pasta".