scholarly journals Neutron Stars and the Nuclear Matter Equation of State

Author(s):  
J.M. Lattimer

Neutron stars provide a window into the properties of dense nuclear matter. Several recent observational and theoretical developments provide powerful constraints on their structure and internal composition. Among these are the first observed binary neutron star merger, GW170817, whose gravitational radiation was accompanied by electromagnetic radiation from a short γ-ray burst and an optical afterglow believed to be due to the radioactive decay of newly minted heavy r-process nuclei. These observations give important constraints on the radii of typical neutron stars and on the upper limit to the neutron star maximum mass and complement recent pulsar observations that established a lower limit. Pulse-profile observations by the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) X-ray telescope provide an independent, consistent measure of the neutron star radius. Theoretical many-body studies of neutron matter reinforce these estimates of neutron star radii. Studies using parameterized dense matter equations of state (EOSs) reveal several EOS-independent relations connecting global neutron star properties. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Volume 71 is September 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

2021 ◽  
Vol 252 ◽  
pp. 05004
Author(s):  
Polychronis Koliogiannis ◽  
Charalampos Moustakidis

The knowledge of the equation of state is a key ingredient for many dynamical phenomena that depend sensitively on the hot and dense nuclear matter, such as the formation of protoneutron stars and hot neutron stars. In order to accurately describe them, we construct equations of state at FInite temperature and entropy per baryon for matter with varying proton fractions. This procedure is based on the momentum dependent interaction model and state-of-the-art microscopic data. In addition, we investigate the role of thermal and rotation effects on microscopic and macroscopic properties of neutron stars, including the mass and radius, the frequency, the Kerr parameter, the central baryon density, etc. The latter is also connected to the hot and rapidly rotating remnant after neutron star merger. The interplay between these quantities and data from late observations of neutron stars, both isolated and in matter of merging, could provide useful insight and robust constraints on the equation of state of nuclear matter.


2021 ◽  
Vol 252 ◽  
pp. 05005
Author(s):  
Alkiviadis Kanakis-Pegios ◽  
Polychronis Koliogiannis ◽  
Charalampos Moustakidis

One of the greatest interest and open problems in nuclear physics is the upper limit of the speed of sound in dense nuclear matter. Neutron stars, both in isolated and binary system cases, constitute a very promising natural laboratory for studying this kind of problem. This present work is based on one of our recent study, regarding the speed of sound and possible constraints that we can obtain from neutron stars. To be more specific, in the core of our study lies the examination of the speed of sound through the measured tidal deformability of a binary neutron star system (during the inspiral phase). The relation between the maximum neutron star mass scenario and the possible upper bound on the speed of sound is investigated. The approach that we used follows the contradiction between the recent observations of binary neutron star systems, in which the effective tidal deformability favors softer equations of state, while the high measured masses of isolated neutron stars favor stiffer equations of state. In our approach, we parametrized the stiffness of the equation of state by using the speed of sound. Moreover, we used the two recent observations of binary neutron star mergers from LIGO/VIRGO, so that we can impose robust constraints on the speed of sound. Furthermore, we postulate the kind of future measurements that could be helpful by imposing more stringent constraints on the equation of state.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (04) ◽  
pp. 1750015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeunhwan Lim ◽  
Chang Ho Hyun ◽  
Chang-Hwan Lee

In this paper, we investigate the cooling of neutron stars with relativistic and nonrelativistic models of dense nuclear matter. We focus on the effects of uncertainties originated from the nuclear models, the composition of elements in the envelope region, and the formation of superfluidity in the core and the crust of neutron stars. Discovery of [Formula: see text] neutron stars PSR J1614−2230 and PSR J0343[Formula: see text]0432 has triggered the revival of stiff nuclear equation of state at high densities. In the meantime, observation of a neutron star in Cassiopeia A for more than 10 years has provided us with very accurate data for the thermal evolution of neutron stars. Both mass and temperature of neutron stars depend critically on the equation of state of nuclear matter, so we first search for nuclear models that satisfy the constraints from mass and temperature simultaneously within a reasonable range. With selected models, we explore the effects of element composition in the envelope region, and the existence of superfluidity in the core and the crust of neutron stars. Due to uncertainty in the composition of particles in the envelope region, we obtain a range of cooling curves that can cover substantial region of observation data.


Universe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. 204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenico Logoteta ◽  
Ignazio Bombaci

We discuss the constraints on the equation of state (EOS) of neutron star matter obtained by the data analysis of the neutron star-neutron star merger in the event GW170807. To this scope, we consider two recent microscopic EOS models computed starting from two-body and three-body nuclear interactions derived using chiral perturbation theory. For comparison, we also use three representative phenomenological EOS models derived within the relativistic mean field approach. For each model, we determine the β -stable EOS and then the corresponding neutron star structure by solving the equations of hydrostatic equilibrium in general relativity. In addition, we calculate the tidal deformability parameters for the two neutron stars and discuss the results of our calculations in connection with the constraints obtained from the gravitational wave signal in GW170817. We find that the tidal deformabilities and radii for the binary’s component neutron stars in GW170817, calculated using a recent microscopic EOS model proposed by the present authors, are in very good agreement with those derived by gravitational waves data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 609 ◽  
pp. A128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignazio Bombaci ◽  
Domenico Logoteta

Aims. We report a new microscopic equation of state (EOS) of dense symmetric nuclear matter, pure neutron matter, and asymmetric and β-stable nuclear matter at zero temperature using recent realistic two-body and three-body nuclear interactions derived in the framework of chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) and including the Δ(1232) isobar intermediate state. This EOS is provided in tabular form and in parametrized form ready for use in numerical general relativity simulations of binary neutron star merging. Here we use our new EOS for β-stable nuclear matter to compute various structural properties of non-rotating neutron stars. Methods. The EOS is derived using the Brueckner–Bethe–Goldstone quantum many-body theory in the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock approximation. Neutron star properties are next computed solving numerically the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkov structure equations. Results. Our EOS models are able to reproduce the empirical saturation point of symmetric nuclear matter, the symmetry energy Esym, and its slope parameter L at the empirical saturation density n0. In addition, our EOS models are compatible with experimental data from collisions between heavy nuclei at energies ranging from a few tens of MeV up to several hundreds of MeV per nucleon. These experiments provide a selective test for constraining the nuclear EOS up to ~4n0. Our EOS models are consistent with present measured neutron star masses and particularly with the mass M = 2.01 ± 0.04 M⊙ of the neutron stars in PSR J0348+0432.


Author(s):  
Raffaella Margutti ◽  
Ryan Chornock

We describe the first observations of the same celestial object with gravitational waves and light. ▪ GW170817 was the first detection of a neutron star merger with gravitational waves. ▪ The detection of a spatially coincident weak burst of gamma-rays (GRB 170817A) 1.7 s after the merger constituted the first electromagnetic detection of a gravitational wave source and established a connection between at least some cosmic short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) and binary neutron star mergers. ▪ A fast-evolving optical and near-infrared transient (AT 2017gfo) associated with the event can be interpreted as resulting from the ejection of ∼0.05 M⊙ of material enriched in r-process elements, finally establishing binary neutron star mergers as at least one source of r-process nucleosynthesis. ▪ Radio and X-ray observations revealed a long-rising source that peaked ∼[Formula: see text] after the merger. Combined with the apparent superluminal motion of the associated very long baseline interferometry source, these observations show that the merger produced a relativistic structured jet whose core was oriented ≈20 deg from the line of sight and with properties similar to SGRBs. The jet structure likely results from interaction between the jet and the merger ejecta. ▪ The electromagnetic and gravitational wave information can be combined to produce constraints on the expansion rate of the Universe and the equation of state of dense nuclear matter. These multimessenger endeavors will be a major emphasis for future work. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 59 is September 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A78 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Morawski ◽  
M. Bejger

Context. Neutron stars are currently studied with an rising number of electromagnetic and gravitational-wave observations, which will ultimately allow us to constrain the dense matter equation of state and understand the physical processes at work within these compact objects. Neutron star global parameters, such as the mass and radius, can be used to obtain the equation of state by directly inverting the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations. Here, we investigate an alternative approach to this procedure. Aims. The aim of this work is to study the application of the artificial neural networks guided by the autoencoder architecture as a method for precisely reconstructing the neutron star equation of state, using their observable parameters: masses, radii, and tidal deformabilities. In addition, we study how well the neutron star radius can be reconstructed using only the gravitational-wave observations of tidal deformability, that is, using quantities that are not related in any straightforward way. Methods. The application of an artificial neural network in the equation-of-state reconstruction exploits the non-linear potential of this machine learning model. Since each neuron in the network is basically a non-linear function, it is possible to create a complex mapping between the input sets of observations and the output equation-of-state table. Within the supervised training paradigm, we construct a few hidden-layer deep neural networks on a generated data set, consisting of a realistic equation of state for the neutron star crust connected with a piecewise relativistic polytropes dense core, with its parameters representative of state-of-the art realistic equations of state. Results. We demonstrate the performance of our machine-learning implementation with respect to the simulated cases with a varying number of observations and measurement uncertainties. Furthermore, we study the impact of the neutron star mass distributions on the results. Finally, we test the reconstruction of the equation of state trained on parametric polytropic training set using the simulated mass–radius and mass–tidal-deformability sequences based on realistic equations of state. Neural networks trained with a limited data set are capable of generalising the mapping between global parameters and equation-of-state input tables for realistic models.


1992 ◽  
Vol 128 ◽  
pp. 217-219
Author(s):  
Pawel Haensel

AbstractA simple approximate formula, expressing the maximum moment of inertia of a neutron star as a function of the mass and radius of the configuration with a maximum allowable mass, is shown to be a quite precise representation of the results obtained for a broad set of equations of state of dense matter. The resulting possible observational constraints in the mass-radius plane for neutron star models are discussed.


Physics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-319
Author(s):  
Sukrit Jaiswal ◽  
Debarati Chatterjee

In this paper, an investigation of the role of nuclear saturation parameters on f-mode oscillations in neutron stars is performed within the Cowling approximation. It is found that the uncertainty in the effective nucleon mass plays a dominant role in controlling the f-mode frequencies. The effect of the uncertainties in saturation parameters on previously-proposed empirical relations of the frequencies with astrophysical observables relevant for asteroseismology are also investigated. These results can serve as an important tool for constraining the nuclear parameter space and understand the behaviour of dense nuclear matter from the future detection of f-modes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. A174 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sieniawska ◽  
W. Turczański ◽  
M. Bejger ◽  
J. L. Zdunik

Context. Using parametric equations of state (relativistic polytropes and a simple quark bag model) to model dense-matter phase transitions, we study global, measurable astrophysical parameters of compact stars such as their allowed radii and tidal deformabilities. We also investigate the influence of stiffness of matter before the onset of the phase transitions on the parameters of the possible exotic dense phase. Aims. The aim of our study is to compare the parameter space of the dense matter equation of state permitting phase transitions to a sub-space compatible with current observational constraints such as the maximum observable mass, tidal deformabilities of neutron star mergers, radii of configurations before the onset of the phase transition, and to give predictions for future observations. Methods. We studied solutions of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations for a flexible set of parametric equations of state, constructed using a realistic description of neutron-star crust (up to the nuclear saturation density), and relativistic polytropes connected by a density-jump phase transition to a simple bag model description of deconfined quark matter. Results. In order to be consistent with recent observations of massive neutron stars, a compact star with a strong high-mass phase transition cannot have a radius smaller than 12 km in the range of masses 1.2 − 1.6 M⊙. We also compare tidal deformabilities of stars with weak and strong phase transitions with the results of the GW170817 neutron star merger. Specifically, we study characteristic phase transition features in the Λ1 − Λ2 relation, and estimate the deviations of our results from the approximate formulæ for Λ∼ − R (M1) and Λ-compactness proposed in the literature. We find constraints on the hybrid equations of state to produce stable neutron stars on the twin branch. For the exemplary equations of state most of the high-mass twins occur for the minimum values of the density jump λ = 1.33 − 1.54; corresponding values of the square of the speed of sound are α = 0.7 − 0.37. We compare results with observations of gravitational waves and with the theoretical causal limit and find that the minimum radius of a twin branch is between 9.5 and 10.5 km, and depends on the phase transition baryon density. For these solutions the phase transition occurs below 0.56 fm−3.


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