Unified equations of state for cold nonaccreting neutron stars with Brussels-Montreal functionals. III. Inclusion of microscopic corrections to pasta phases

Earlier fourth-order extended Thomas-Fermi calculations with functional BSk24 of pasta phases in the inner crust of neutron stars are here repeated with Strutinsky-integral and pairing corrections included for protons. The main consequence of these corrections is to eliminate the spaghetti phase at zero temperature and significantly reduce the range of densities over which the lasagna phase is found. On the other hand, the microscopic corrections have a negligible impact on the equation of state and on the proton fraction.

Figure 1

The microscopic (SI plus pairing) correction (in MeV) as a function of $Z$ for functional BSk24 with spherical WS cells at $\overline{n}=2.7\times {10}^{-4}{\mathrm{fm}}^{-3}$. The neutron number $N$ is optimized for each $Z$.

Figure 2

Energy per nucleon at $\overline{n}=0.0738136{\mathrm{fm}}^{-3}$ for spherical cells (left), spaghetti (center), and lasagna (right) as a function of proton number. Dotted curves: ETF, solid curves: ETFSI.