We study the cooling of isolated neutron stars with particular regard to the importance of nuclear pairing gaps. A microscopic nuclear equation of state derived in the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach is used together with compatible neutron and proton pairing gaps. We then study the effect of modifying the gaps on the final deduced neutron star mass distributions. We find that a consistent description of all current cooling data can be achieved and a reasonable neutron star mass distribution can be predicted employing the (slightly reduced by about 40%) proton 1S0 Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) gaps and no neutron 3P2 pairing.

中文翻译：

---

核配对间隙和中子星冷却

我们研究孤立中子星的冷却，特别是考虑核对间隙的重要性。用Brueckner-Hartree-Fock方法得出的微观状态方程与相容的中子和质子配对间隙一起使用。然后，我们研究了修改间隙对最终推导出的中子星质量分布的影响。我们发现，使用（略微减少约40％）质子1S0 Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer（BCS）间隙并且没有中子3P2配对，可以实现对所有当前冷却数据的一致描述，并且可以预测合理的中子星质量分布。 。