Gravitochemical Heating in Neutron Stars: Constraining Possible Variations of the Gravitational Constant

Details Gravitochemical Heating in Neutron Stars: Constraining Possible Variations of the Gravitational Constant Gravitochemical Heating in Neutron Stars: Constraining Possible Variations of the Gravitational Constant

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006rmxac..26..203j&link_type=abstract

XI IAU Regional Latin American Meeting of Astronomy (Eds. L. Infante & M. Rubio) Revista Mexicana de Astronomía y Astrofísica (S

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We report a study of the thermal evolution of a neutron star subject to a time-variation of the gravitational constant, G, analyzing the reactions that occur in the star's core when its density changes, namely direct (n to p + e + barν) and inverse (p+eto n+ν) beta decays. The star is in chemical equilibrium if the rates of direct and inverse beta decays are the same, so the composition of the matter does not change. For a hypothetical time-variation of G, the resulting density change forces the chemical composition to adjust to a new equilibrium. The particles produced in these non-equilibrium reactions heat the star with their kinetic energy (gravitochemical heating). Eventually, the cooling effect due to neutrino and photon emission has the same magnitude as that of the gravitochemical heating, so the temperature remains constant. Time-evolution models for the temperature have been made for neutron stars with different masses, equations of state, and values of dotG. The surface temperatures obtained in the stationary state have been compared with the observation of PSR J0437-4715, obtaining an upper bound for |dotG| comparable to those from other methods.

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