Dynamical exploration of complex states of matter in neutron stars crusts

Modern nuclear physics as well as many body theories are valuable tools which may allow us to improve our understanding of the physics of compact objects. The interest is twofold: on one side, learning about stellar matter properties as its transport coefficients, may have important astrophysical consequences. On the other side, probing the equation of state to which the occurrence of exotic structures in neutron stars crusts is expected to be sensitive, is in direct con nexion with heavy ion reactions aspects as the processes leading to fragment formation. We investigate the occurrence of exotic structures in the outermost layers of neutron stars within the framework of a microscopic model [1] describing the nucleonic dynamics through a time dependent mean field approach at around zero temperature. In this model starting from an initial crystalline lattice of nuclei at subnuclear densities the system evolves and self organizes in various low-lying energy structures without assumption of final shapes [2]. The effect on the behavior of these structures due to different lattice symmetries, densities, nuclear composites and lattice perturbations are analyzed. We investigate their sensitivity to the equation of state (in particular to the isospin-dependent part of the effective force) and propose a general treatment of transport phenomena in the nuclear medium of the crust