Direct Urca processes on nucleons in cooling neutron stars Original Research Article

We use the field theoretical model to perform relativistic calculations of neutrino energy losses caused by the direct Urca processes on nucleons in the degenerate baryon matter. By our analysis, the direct neutron decay in the superdense nuclear matter under beta equilibrium is open only due to the isovector meson fields, which create a large energy gap between protons and neutrons in the medium. Our expression for the neutrino energy losses, obtained in the mean field approximation, incorporates the effects of nucleon recoil, parity violation, weak magnetism, and pseudoscalar interaction. For numerical testing of our formula, we use a self-consistent relativistic model of the multicomponent baryon matter. The relativistic emissivity of the direct Urca reactions is found substantially larger than predicted in the non-relativistic approach. Weak magnetism effects approximately double the neutrino emissivity, while the pseudoscalar interaction slightly suppresses the energy losses, approximately by 10%.