The MATINS Code
During my PhD I led the development of MATINS, an open-access code that follows the coupled magnetic and thermal evolution of isolated neutron stars in full 3D. Earlier studies were mostly axisymmetric (2D) or treated the coupling between heat and magnetic field only schematically. MATINS evolves the crustal magnetic field under Ohmic dissipation and the Hall drift, together with a 3D cooling model, realistic equations of state from the CompOSE database and up-to-date microphysics, on a cubed-sphere grid that avoids the singularities of spherical coordinates. It follows a star self-consistently for a million years and predicts what we actually observe: thermal X-ray emission, surface magnetic fields and rotation. It is also the engine behind population-synthesis studies and models of magnetar outbursts driven by crustal stress. MATINS has since been extended to include the chiral magnetic effect.
Related publications
C. Dehman, D. Viganò, J.A. Pons, N. Rea, 3D code for MAgneto–Thermal evolution in Isolated Neutron Stars, MATINS: the magnetic field formalism, MNRAS 518, 1222, 2022. PDF | arXiv | DOI
S. Ascenzi, D. Viganò, C. Dehman, J.A. Pons, N. Rea, R. Perna, 3D code for MAgneto–Thermal evolution in Isolated Neutron Stars, MATINS: thermal evolution and light curves, MNRAS 533, 201, 2024. PDF | arXiv | DOI
C. Dehman, D. Viganò, S. Ascenzi, J.A. Pons, N. Rea, 3D evolution of neutron star magnetic fields from a realistic core-collapse turbulent topology, MNRAS 523, 5198, 2023. PDF | arXiv | DOI
C. Dehman, J.A. Pons, Magnetar field dynamics shaped by chiral anomalies and helicity, Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033231, 2025. PDF | arXiv | DOI
J.A. Pons, C. Dehman, D. Viganò, Magnetic, thermal and rotational evolution of isolated neutron stars, Living Rev Comput Astrophys 12, 5, 2026. PDF | arXiv | DOI