Heat blanketing envelopes of neutron stars

Understand

Near the surface of any neutron star there is a thin heat blanketing envelope that produces substantial thermal insulation of warm neutron star interiors and that relates the internal temperature of the star to its effective surface temperature.

• Physical processes in the blanketing envelopes are reasonably clear but the chemical composition is not.
• The latter circumstance complicates inferring physical parameters of matter in the stellar interiors from observations of the thermal surface radiation of the stars and urges one to elaborate the models of blanketing envelopes.
• We outline physical properties of these envelopes, particularly, the equation of state, thermal conduction, ion diffusion and others.