Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 156, 265-271 (2008)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2008-00624-0

Nuclear superfluidity and cooling time of neutron stars

Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, 76900 Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

We discuss how the nuclear superfluidity affects the thermalisation time of the inner crust of neutron star in the case of a rapid cooling process. The thermal response of the inner crust matter is calculated supposing two pairing scenarios: one corresponding to the BCS approximation and the other to many-body techniques including polarisation effects. It is shown that these two pairing scenarios, which reflect the present uncertainty in the pairing properties of infinite neutron matter, give very different values for the thermalisation time of the crust.