Excited nuclei, resonances and reactions in neutron star crusts

The short review of research results concerning the study of reactions and processes that occur in the neutron star crusts is given. The peculiarities of electron capture reactions by a nucleus in overdense crystalline structures have been demonstrated for various nuclei, in particular some even-even nuclei at electron capture reactions give daughter nuclei in excited states. Excited nuclei due to nonlinear interactions lead to a high-order harmonic generation. High energy gammas interact with charged particles, give a neutrino radiation and also knock out nucleons from neighbour nuclei.

It is also shown that interactions of neutrons with two and more nuclei in an overdence lattice give a large number of new resonance states. These resonances result in a formation of specific local oscillations in the corresponding layers of the lattice. The periodic enhancement of these processes in the dependence on the elemental composition of the primary neutron star matter is considered. (paper)