Role of proton pairing in a semimicroscopic treatment of the inner crust of neutron stars

The TETFSI (temperature-dependent extended Thomas-Fermi plus Strutinsky integral) method for calculating the properties of the inner crust of neutron stars is here extended in the zero-temperature limit to include proton pairing. The main effect is to smooth out the proton shell effects, although the energetically favored value of Z, the number of protons per Wigner-Seitz cell, remains at, or close to, 40.