The role of superfluidity in the structure of the neutron star inner crust

A self-consistent quantum approach to describe the inner crust structure of neutron stars is developed, within the Wigner–Seitz approximation. It is based on the generalized energy functional method involving explicitly neutron and proton pairing correlations. The energy functional is constructed by matching the realistic phenomenological functional by Fayans et al. for describing the nuclear-type cluster in the center of the Wigner–Seitz cell with the one calculated microscopically for neutron matter. It is shown that the neutron and proton superfluidity influences significantly the ground state structure of the inner crust.