Effects of the U-boson on the inner edge of neutron star crusts

Abstract

We explore effects of the light vector $U$-boson, which is weakly coupled to nucleons, on the transition density ${\rho }_t$ and pressure $P_t$ at the inner edge separating the liquid core from the solid crust of neutron stars. Three methods, i.e., the thermodynamical approach, the curvature matrix approach and the Vlasov equation approach are used to determine the transition density ${\rho }_t$ with the Skyrme effective nucleon-nucleon interactions. We find that the ${\rho }_t$ and $P_t$ depend on not only the ratio of coupling strength to mass squared of the $U$-boson $g^2/{\mu }^2$ but also its mass $\mu$ due to the finite range interaction from the $U$-boson exchange. In particular, our results indicate that the ${\rho }_t$ and $P_t$ are sensitive to both $g^2/{\mu }^2$ and $\mu$ if the $U$-boson mass $\mu$ is larger than about 2 MeV. Furthermore, we show that both $g^2/{\mu }^2$ and $\mu$ can have significant influence on the mass-radius relation and the crustal fraction of total moment of inertia of neutron stars. In addition, we study the exchange term contribution of the $U$-boson based on the density matrix expansion method, and demonstrate that the exchange term effects on the nuclear matter equation of state as well as the ${\rho }_t$ and $P_t$ are generally negligible.

Comments: 16 pages, 8 figures. Fig. 1 and Fig. 4 revised, typos fixed. Published version in PRD