The maximum mass and radius of neutron stars and the nuclear symmetry energy

By Stefano Gandolfi, J. Carlson, S. Reddy. 2011

257 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We calculate the equation of state of neutron matter with realistic two- and threenucleon interactions using Quantum Monte Carlo techniques, and demonstrate that the short-range three-neutron interaction determines the correlation between neutron matter energy at nuclear saturation density and the higher densities relevant to neutron stars. Our model for the nuclear interactions makes an experimentally testable prediction for the correlation between the neutron matter energy (which in turn is related to the symmetry energy) and its density dependence. This correlation is solely determined by the strength of the short-range 3 neutron force. The same force also provides a stringent constraint on the maximum mass and radius of neutron stars. An experimental measurement of the symmetry energy with an accuracy of < 1 MeV will enable model predictions for neutron star structure that can be tested with current and anticipated constraints on the masses and radii of neutron stars from x-ray observations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/924c584240c825cb4289dbead251055bb8144d58

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

Constraining the mass and radius of neutron stars in globular clusters (2017, background): “Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of neutron matter (Gandolfi et al. 2012) provide an excellent description of matter up to the nuclear saturation density (ρ ≈ 2.8×1014 g/cm3).”
The Nuclear Symmetry Energy (2016, methodology): “ational 31 M. Baldo and G.F. Burgio / Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics 00 (2016) 1–71 32 data. The sensitivity of NS mass (and radius) to the symmetry energy at saturation was studied in ref. [110], where a ﬂexible form of three-neutrons interaction was used to estimate the uncertainty on th”
Error Estimates of Theoretical Models: a Guide (2014, background): “w-body systems [33], drip lines [31, 34] (see Fig. 9), neutron skins and dipole polarizability [35, 36, 37], nucleon densities [12], weak-charge form factor [11], and neutron matter equation of state [8, 38, 24, 39, 40, 41, 42, 28]. 0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 neutron number 0 40 80 120 proton numbe”
Combined Constraints on the Equation of State of Dense Neutron-rich Matter from Terrestrial Nuclear Experiments and Observations of Neutron Stars (2018, unknown): “Gandolfi et al. (2009, 2012); Steiner et al. (2016).”
THE DENSE MATTER EQUATION OF STATE FROM NEUTRON STAR RADIUS AND MASS MEASUREMENTS (2015, methodology): “Following Gandolfi et al. (2012), we consider the expansion of the interaction in terms of two- and three-body potentials and use the contribution of the two-body potential (Argonne AV8) to determine a lower bound to the pressure at 1.85 ρns.”
Generic conditions for stable hybrid stars (2013, unknown): “There has been much work on a plausible form for the equation of state (EoS) of nuclear matter at densities above nuclear density, using models of the nuclear force that are constrained by existing scattering data (see, for example, [1, 2]).”
Approximate Universal Relations for Neutron Stars and Quark Stars (2016, unknown): “1 [118], G4 [121], GCR [135], MPa [136].”