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Main Authors: Suleiman, Lami, Oertel, Micaela, Mancini, Marco
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.09819
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author Suleiman, Lami
Oertel, Micaela
Mancini, Marco
author_facet Suleiman, Lami
Oertel, Micaela
Mancini, Marco
contents Charged current neutrino-nucleon reactions, generally called Urca processes, are crucial actors of a neutron star's thermal evolution. The so-called direct processes show a pronounced threshold under which the reaction is kinematically suppressed. This suppression does not apply to "modified" Urca processes which involve interaction with an additional nucleon. Calculations of the modified Urca neutrino rates were established for cold neutron star matter and for dilute hot matter, in both cases under strong assumptions. In this paper, we revise the calculations of the modified Urca neutrino rates for dense and hot matter, and for different compositions. We study the influence of different approximations used in previous computations. We derive expressions for the rates of modified Urca neutrino emissivity within thermal field theory and perform the phase space integration numerically using mainly importance sampling Monte-Carlo techniques. The neutrino emissivity of modified and direct processes are established and compared. We find in particular that the modified Urca process is not necessarily suppressed with respect to the direct process above the threshold of the latter at moderate densities and temperatures, in contrast to what is generally assumed. Numerical results are confirmed by an estimation of the ratio of modified to direct Urca rates with a simple analytic approximation, thereby showing the regimes of suppression for the modified processes depending on temperature and density. These results show that modified Urca rates have to be considered carefully upon evaluating neutrino opacities in dense and warm matter.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_09819
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modified Urca neutrino emissivity at finite temperature
Suleiman, Lami
Oertel, Micaela
Mancini, Marco
Nuclear Theory
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Charged current neutrino-nucleon reactions, generally called Urca processes, are crucial actors of a neutron star's thermal evolution. The so-called direct processes show a pronounced threshold under which the reaction is kinematically suppressed. This suppression does not apply to "modified" Urca processes which involve interaction with an additional nucleon. Calculations of the modified Urca neutrino rates were established for cold neutron star matter and for dilute hot matter, in both cases under strong assumptions. In this paper, we revise the calculations of the modified Urca neutrino rates for dense and hot matter, and for different compositions. We study the influence of different approximations used in previous computations. We derive expressions for the rates of modified Urca neutrino emissivity within thermal field theory and perform the phase space integration numerically using mainly importance sampling Monte-Carlo techniques. The neutrino emissivity of modified and direct processes are established and compared. We find in particular that the modified Urca process is not necessarily suppressed with respect to the direct process above the threshold of the latter at moderate densities and temperatures, in contrast to what is generally assumed. Numerical results are confirmed by an estimation of the ratio of modified to direct Urca rates with a simple analytic approximation, thereby showing the regimes of suppression for the modified processes depending on temperature and density. These results show that modified Urca rates have to be considered carefully upon evaluating neutrino opacities in dense and warm matter.
title Modified Urca neutrino emissivity at finite temperature
topic Nuclear Theory
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.09819