Breaking stress of Coulomb crystals in the neutron star crust

Andrew A Kozhberov

Published 2020-11-09Version 1

It is generally accepted that the Coulomb crystal model can be used to describe matter in the neutron star crust. In [1] we study the properties of deformed Coulomb crystals and how their stability depends on the polarization of the electron background; the breaking stress in the crust $\sigma_{\max}$ at zero temperature was calculated based on the analysis of the electrostatic energy and the phonon spectrum of the Coulomb crystal. In this paper, I briefly discuss the influence of zero-point and thermal contributions on $\sigma_{\max}$.