Combined Constraints on the Equation of State of Dense Neutron-rich Matter from Terrestrial Nuclear Experiments and Observations of Neutron Stars

By Nai-Bo Zhang, Bao-An Li, Jun Xu. Astrophysical Journal, 2018

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Within the parameter space of the equation of state (EOS) of dense neutron-rich matter limited by existing constraints mainly from terrestrial nuclear experiments, we investigate how the neutron star maximum mass Mmax > 2.01 ± 0.04 M⊙, radius 10.62 km < R1.4 < 12.83 km and tidal deformability Λ1.4 ≤ 800 of canonical neutron stars together constrain the EOS of dense neutron-rich nucleonic matter. While the 3D parameter space of Ksym (curvature of nuclear symmetry energy), Jsym, and J0 (skewness of the symmetry energy and EOS of symmetric nuclear matter, respectively) is narrowed down significantly by the observational constraints, more data are needed to pin down the individual values of Ksym, Jsym, and J0. The J0 largely controls the maximum mass of neutron stars. While the EOS with J0 = 0 is sufficiently stiff to support neutron stars as massive as 2.37 M⊙, supporting the hypothetical ones as massive as 2.74 M⊙ (composite mass of GW170817) requires J0 to be larger than its currently known maximum value of about 400 MeV and beyond the causality limit. The upper limit on the tidal deformability of Λ1.4 = 800 from the recent observation of GW170817 is found to provide upper limits on some EOS parameters consistent with but far less restrictive than the existing constraints of other observables studied.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e303f62d535749cd9cd024ab113c662ae6ecfcbc

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Citations in the corpus

Progress in Constraining Nuclear Symmetry Energy Using Neutron Star Observables Since GW170817 (2021, methodology): “More specifically, the 9 analyses are from (1) (Zhang & Li 2019) directly inverting observed NS radii, tidal deformability, and maximum mass in the high-density EOS space [88,89,91], (2) (Xie & Li 2019) a Bayesian inference from the radii of canonical NSs observed by using Chandra X-rays and gravita”
Evidence for a maximum mass cut-off in the neutron star mass distribution and constraints on the equation of state (2017, background): “…observation of the NS-NS merger GW170817 (Abbott et al. 2017) marks the dawn of a new era in probing NS physics with gravitational waves, and it is already providing new insights on the EoS (Annala et al. 2017; Banik & Bandyopadhyay 2017; Radice et al. 2018; Most et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2018).”