I] Neutron star geology
A) Are neutron stars planets?
B) Are NS geologically active?
C) Do NS have plate tectonics?
a. Faults?
b. Volcanoes?
c. Mountains?
d. Other surface features?
D) What minerals/ kinds of rock are present?
II] Star quakes
A) Are giant flares triggered by star quakes? If so, must the crust be very strong to explain the large energy of the 2004 giant flare in SGR 1806-20?
B) Are flares and microflares also related to star quakes? If so, how are quakes, that correspond to flares of different energy, related?
C) How does the crust break?
a. Catastrophically or more gradually?
b. In which direction and over what volume?
c. Does the crust melt during a quake?
d. At what depth?
e. Which oscillation modes are excited and with what amplitudes?
f. What is the role of magnetic fields?
D) How do quakes change the properties of future quakes?
III] Composition of accreting star crust
A) What is the value of the impurity parameter Q=
B) Do we have an “impurity problem” where theoretical Q is too large to agree with limits from crust cooling observations?
a. Are limits robust?
b. If so, how might the impurity problem be solved? [During nucleosyn?, phase separation?, nuclear reactions?]
C) Does the composition relax to cold catalyzed matter soon after neutron drip? If so how much heat is released?
IV] Pasta
A) How do we “smell the pasta”? What observables demonstrate the presence of pasta? [I think this is hard]
B) How does the microphysics change in going from crust to pasta to core? Does it change abruptly, or is there a more smooth transition?
C) How does pasta change the shear modulus, shear mode frequencies, and breaking strain?
D) Is there large damping of collective modes at the crust / core interface, or is the damping muted by the pasta?
