Neutron diffusion in magnetars as a source of astrophysical bursts

Abstract

Neutron tunneling in neutron star crusts can release enormous amounts of energy on a short timescale. We have clarified aspects of this process occurring in the outer crust regions of neutron stars when oscillations or cataclysmic events changes the crustal ambient density. We report a time-dependent Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov model to determine the rate of neutron diffusion and conclude that a large amount of energy, in the range of 10^40 - 10^44 erg, can be released rapidly. We suggest that this mechanism may be the source of hitherto unknown phenomena such as the Fast Radio Bursts (FRBS).

Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, contribution to the XLIV Brazilian Workshop on Nuclear Physics to be published by the IOP