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The observation of X-rays during quiescence from transiently accretingneutron stars provides unique clues about the nature of dense matter. This,however, requires extensive modeling of the crusts and matching the results toobservations. The pycnonuclear fusion reaction rates implemented in thesemodels are theoretically calculated by extending phenomenological expressionsand have large uncertainties spanning many orders of magnitude. We present thefirst sensitivity studies of these pycnonuclear fusion reactions in realisticnetwork calculations. We also couple the reaction network with the thermalevolution code dStar to further study their impact on the neutron star coolingcurves in quiescence. Varying the pycnonuclear fusion reaction rates alters thedepth at which nuclear heat is deposited although the total heating remainsconstant. The enhancement of the pycnonuclear fusion reaction rates leads to anoverall shallower deposition of nuclear heat. The impurity factors are alsoaltered depending on the type of ashes deposited on the crust. These totalchanges correspond to a variation of up to 9 eV in the modeled cooling curves.While this is not sufficient to explain the shallow heat source, it iscomparable to the observational uncertainties and can still be important formodeling the neutron star crust.

Impact of Pycnonuclear Fusion Uncertainties on the Cooling of Accreting Neutron Star Crusts