Polycrystalline Crusts in Accreting Neutron Stars

Understand

The crust of accreting neutron stars plays a central role in many different observational phenomena.

• In these stars, heavy elements produced by H-He burning in the rapid proton capture (rp-) process continually freeze to form new crust.
• In this paper, we explore the expected composition of the solid phase.
• We first demonstrate using molecular dynamics that two distinct types of chemical separation occur, depending on the composition of the rp-process ashes.