2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/211660In our calculation of neutron star crust heating we include several key new model features. In earlier work electron capture (EC) only allowed neutron emission from the daughter ground-state; here we calculate, in a deformed QRPA model, EC decay rates to all states in the daughter that are allowed by Gamow-Teller selection rules and energetics. The subsequent branching ratios between the 1n,...,xn channels and the competing $γ$-decay are calculated in a Hauser-Feshbach model. Since EC accesses excited states, many more neutrons are emitted in our calculation than in previous work, leading to accelerated reaction flows. In our multi-component plasma model a single (EC,xn) reaction step can produce several neutron-deficient nuclei, each of which can further decay by (EC,xn). Hence, the neutron emission occurs more continuously with increasing depth as compared to that in a one-component plasma model.Two color figures, accepted for publication by Physical Review LettersAstrophysicstext