It is pointed out that the separate study of neutron star envelopes is a valuable technique for gaining insights into neutron star cooling calculations. It is shown that, to an excellent approximation, the temperature at the inner boundary of the envelope, Tb, is a function only of Ts to the 4th power over gs, where Ts is the effective temperature and gs is the surface gravity. This result makes it possible to investigate very simply the effects of general relativity and of opacity changes on the Tb - Ts relation and to compare calculations by different workers, even though they use different neutron star models. It is also shown that the most important opacity source for obtaining a reliable Tb - Ts relation is the conductive opacity of matter when the ions are liquid. Calculations are presented in which particular attention is given to this region and the best available opacities are used.
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Gudmundsson et al. (1982) studied this question.