Speaker
Description
A bare strange star carries a thin electron layer, the electrosphere, whose overcritical electric field creates electron-positron pairs through the Schwinger mechanism. We revisit two quantities studied in earlier kinetic calculations, the surface pair-creation rate and the evolution of the electric field. We also extend the study by adding relaxation-time collisions. The calculation uses an independent kinetic solver in which the momentum resolution of the degenerate Fermi edge is an explicit parameter. The rate is controlled by that resolution and converges to the Usov value, about $2\times10^{53}\,\mathrm{s^{-1}}$ at $T=3\,m_{\mathrm e}$, roughly forty times below earlier dynamical estimates. The field is not dynamically enhanced and follows the electrostatic solution in the creation region, with the field energy growing by only $4$-$12\%$. Relaxation-time collisions reduce the pair output by $3$-$17\%$ across $T=3$-$9\,m_{\mathrm e}$, an upper bound that surface degeneracy lowers to the percent level.
| Topic | Nuclear matter under extreme conditions |
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