We consider a one-component plasma model of neutron star crusts, assuming a single species of nuclei at
a given density . We restrict ourselves to matter composed of atomic nuclei immersed in a nearly ideal
and uniform, strongly degenerate electron gas of number density
. This model is valid at
. A neutron gas is also present at densities greater than neutron drip density
.
For an ideal, fully degenerate, relativistic electron gas, the Fermi energy (using the letter F
to denote quantities evaluated at the Fermi level and the letter for electrons) is given by
The ion plasma temperature is defined, in terms of the the ion plasma frequency
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The crystallization of a Coulomb plasma of ions occurs at the temperature
where the ion sphere (also called the unit cell or Wigner–Seitz cell) radius is For classical ions (http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2008-10 | ![]() This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Problems/comments to |