Nuclear Pasta in Cold Non-Accreting Neutron Stars: Symmetry Energy Effects by Nikolai N. Shchechilin, John M. Pearson, Nicolas Chamel

“…Within the fourth-order extended Thomas–Fermi method, we find that pasta occupies a wider region of the crust for models with a lower slope of the symmetry energy (and higher symmetry energy at relevant densities) in agreement with previous studies based on pure Thomas–Fermi approximation and compressible liquid-drop models. However, the incorporation of microscopic corrections consistently calculated with the Strutinsky integral method leads to a significant shift of the onset of the pasta phases to higher densities due to the enhanced stability of spherical clusters. …”
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