Impacts of the Nuclear Symmetry Energy on Neutron Star Crusts

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the nuclear symmetry energy influences neutron star crust properties, focusing on pasta phases and crust-core transition, using relativistic mean-field theory with two different modeling approaches.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative study of the effects of nuclear symmetry energy on neutron star crusts using coexisting phase and Thomas-Fermi methods.

Findings

Nuclear symmetry energy significantly affects pasta phase structures.

Density slope of symmetry energy influences crust-core transition.

Different modeling methods yield consistent insights into crust properties.

Abstract

Using the relativistic mean-field theory, we adopt two different methods, namely, the coexisting phase method and the self-consistent Thomas-Fermi approximation, to study the impacts of the nuclear symmetry energy on properties of neutron star crusts within a wide range of densities. It is found that the nuclear symmetry energy and its density slope play an important role in determining the pasta phases and the crust-core transition.