Spectral Evidence of Heavy Nuclei from the Neutron Star Crust in Magnetar Bursts

Abstract The crust of a neutron star (NS) provides a unique laboratory for studying matter under extreme density and magnetic field conditions that cannot be realized in terrestrial experiments. However, direct observational constraints on its composition have remained very limited. Magnetar bursts provide a promising means to probe the nuclear composition of the outer crust, as their energy release may be associated with stress-driven yielding of the crustal Coulomb lattice (including plastic deformation) and magnetic reconnection in the surrounding magnetosphere. We develop a general-purpose radiative transfer framework for a strongly magnetized electron–ion thermal plasma (MEITP) and apply it to the observed X-ray burst spectra. The spectral fits disfavor light-ion compositions and instead favor plasmas characterized by effective charge numbers around Z ∼ 37. These results provide spectral evidence for the participation of heavy nuclei in magnetar bursts, offer new observational constraints on the baryonic content and the location of the emitting fireballs, and further imply a crustal origin of the heavy ions.