Neutron star cooling and mass distributions

We study the cooling of isolated neutron stars, employing different nuclear equations of state with or without active direct Urca process, and investigate the interplay with the nuclear pairing gaps. We find that a consistent description of all current cooling data requires fast direct Urca cooling and reasonable proton 1S0 gaps, but no neutron 3P2 pairing. We then deduce the neutron star mass distributions compatible with the cooling analysis and compare with current theoretical models. Reduced 1S0 gaps and unimodal mass distributions are preferred by the analysis. The importance of statistical and systematic errors is also investigated.