Electron conduction along quantizing magnetic fields in neutron star crusts. II. Practical formulae

Abstract

Practical expressions are derived for a rapid and accurate evaluation of electric and thermal conductivities and thermopower of degenerate relativistic electrons along quantizing magnetic fields in outer neutron star crusts. The electron Coulomb scattering on ions is considered in liquid matter, and on high-temperature phonons or charged impurities in solid matter. A semi-quantitative treatment of low-temperature phonons is also proposed. The transport properties are expressed through the energy dependent effective electron relaxation time, which is calculated using the theoretical formalism of the previous work (astro-ph/9603133). Accurate fitting expressions for the relaxation time are obtained, and an efficient energy averaging procedure proposed. A Fortran code, which calculates the longitudinal transport properties of degenerate electrons in strong magnetic fields for any parameters of dense stellar matter of practical interest, is available from the authors upon request.