Afterburst thermal relaxation in neutron star crusts

Understand

We study thermal relaxation in a neutron star after internal heating events (outbursts) in the crust.

• We consider thin and thick spherically symmetric heaters, superfluid and non-superfluid crusts, stars with open and forbidden direct Urca processes in their cores.
• In particular, we analyze long-term thermal relaxation after deep crustal heating produced by nuclear transformations in fully or partly accreted crusts of transiently accreting neutron stars.
• This long-term relaxation has a typical relaxation time and an overall finite duration time for the crust to thermally equilibrate with the core.