Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the universe. Born from the explosion of core-collapse supernovae, they are initially very hot and consequently their outer layers (the crust) are made up of a dense liquid composed of various nuclear species immersed in a background “gas” of electrons (and possibly neutrons/protons).
During the doctoral thesis, a theoretical study of the neutron-star crust at finite temperature will be carried out, in particular with regard to the treatment of nuclei in the dense medium characterising the crust. The new model will be employed to calculate the equation of state and the composition of the crust, and applied to predict properties that are important for neutron-star (global) modelling.