Fast Cooling of Neutron Stars: Superfluidity vs. Heating and Accreted Envelope

Abstract

It is generally considered that the neutron star cooling scenarios involving fast neutrino emission, from a kaon or pion condensate, quark matter, or the direct Urca process, require the presence of baryon pairing in the central core of the star to control the strong neutrino emission and produce surface temperatures compatible with observations. I show here that within the kaon condensate scenario pairing is not necessary if: 1) the equation of state is stiff enough for the star to have a thick crust in which sufficient friction can occur to heat the star and 2) a thin layer, of mass larger than 10^{-12} Msol, of light elements (H and He) is present at the stellar surface. The effect of the light elements is to increase the heat flow and thus produce a higher surface temperature. Both the occurrence of heating and the presence of H and/or He at the surface (deposited during the late post-supernova accretion) can possibly be confirmed or infirmed by future observations.