Magnetization of a neutron plasma with Skyrme and Gogny forces in the presence of a strong magnetic field

Abstract

Some thermodynamical magnitudes of interest in a pure neutron plasma are studied within the framework of the non-relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation at finite density and temperature. We use Skyrme and Gogny forces to describe such a neutron plasma and study the main differences that arise in these two effective parametrizations of the nuclear interaction when a strong magnetic field induces a permanent magnetization in the gas. The existence of a non-zero permanent spin polarization in a neutron plasma is explored in the density-temperature parameter space. We find that for moderate temperatures and in the low density range up to densities $\approx 0.5\rho_0$ both parametrizations predict that as density decreases an increasingly strong magnetization is allowed. In the range $0.5 \rho_0 \lesssim \rho \lesssim 3 \rho_0$ there is an approximately constant polarization that can be as big as $\approx 12%$ for the maximum allowed interior magnetic field $B \approx 10^{18}$ G. For higher densities there is a dramatic difference in the polarization trend followed by Skyrme an Gogny forces. While the former predict a ferromagnetic phase transition, the Gogny forces prevent it keeping the magnetization below 5%.