Neutrino Emission from Cooper Pairs at Finite Temperatures

Abstract

A brief review is given of the current state of the problem of neutrino pair emission through neutral weak currents caused by the Cooper pairs breaking and formation (PBF) in superfluid baryon matter at thermal equilibrium. The cases of singlet-state pairing with isotropic superfluid gap and spin-triplet pairing with an anisotropic gap are analyzed with allowance for the anomalous weak interactions caused by superfluidity. It is shown that taking into account the anomalous weak interactions in both the vector and axial channels is very important for a correct description of neutrino energy losses through the PBF processes. The anomalous contributions lead to an almost complete suppression of the PBF neutrino emission in spin-singlet superfluids and strong reduction of the PBF neutrino losses in the spin-triplet superfluid neutron matter, which considerably slows down the cooling rate of neutron stars with superfluid cores.