A RELATIVISTIC MEAN FIELD THEORY FOR NUCLEAR MATTER AT T≠0

We study effects of temperature in hadron dense matter within a generalized relativistic mean field approach based on the naturalness of the various coupling constants of the theory, The Lagrangian density of our formulation contains the fundamental baryon octet, nonlinear self-couplings of the σ and δ meson fields coupled to the baryons and to the ω and ρ meson fields. By adjusting the model parameters, after inclusion in a consistent way of chemical equilibrium, baryon number and electric charge conservation, our model describes static bulk properties of ordinary nuclear matter and neutron stars. In the framework of the Sommerfeld approximation, we extend our approach to the T≠0 domain. The Sommerfeld approximation allows a drastic simplification of computational work while improving the capability of the theoretical analysis of the role of temperature on static properties of protoneutron stars. We perform the calculations by using our nonlinear model, which we extend by considering trapped neutrinos introduced into the formalism by fixing the lepton fraction. Integrating the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equations we have obtained standard plots for the mass and radius of protoneutron stars as a function of the central density and temperature. Our predictions include the determination of an absolute value for the protoneutron star limiting mass at low and intermediate temperature regimes.