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Literature
Date: 3/13/2024

Arxiv: Reheated Sub-40000 Kelvin Neutron Stars at the JWST, ELT, and TMT Published: 3/12/2024 12:37:00 PM Updated: 3/12/2024 12:37:00 PM

Paper abstract: Neutron stars cooling passively since their birth may be reheated in theirlate-stage evolution by a number of possible phenomena: rotochemical, vortexcreep, crust cracking, magnetic field decay, or more exotic processes such asremoval of neutrons from their Fermi seas (the nucleon Auger effect), baryonnumber-violating nucleon decay, and accretion of particle dark matter. UsingExposure Time Calculator tools, we show that reheating mechanisms impartingeffective temperatures of 2000--40000 Kelvin may be uncovered with excellentsensitivities at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Extremely LargeTelescope (ELT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), with imaging instrumentsoperating from visible-edge to near-infrared. With a day of exposure, theycould constrain the reheating luminosity of a neutron star up to a distance of500 pc, within which about 10^5 (undiscovered) neutron stars lie. Detectionin multiple filters could overconstrain a neutron star's surface temperature,distance from Earth, mass, and radius. Using publicly available catalogues ofnewly discovered pulsars at the FAST and CHIME radio telescopes and theGalactic electron distribution models YMW16 and NE2001, we estimate thepulsars' dispersion measure distance from Earth, and find that potentially30-40 of these may be inspected for late-stage reheating within viableexposure times, in addition to a few hundred candidates already present in theATNF catalogue. Whereas the coldest neutron star observed (PSR J2144-3933)has an upper limit on its effective temperature of about 33000 Kelvin with theHubble Space Telescope, we show that the effective temperature may beconstrained down to 20000 Kelvin with JWST-NIRCam, 15000 Kelvin at ELT-MICADO,and 9000 Kelvin with TMT-IRIS. Campaigns to measure thermal luminosities of oldneutron stars would be transformative for astrophysics and fundamental physics.