# Symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities via the Gravitational Waves from GW170817

## TL;DR

This study uses gravitational wave data from GW170817 to constrain the symmetry energy at high densities by analyzing correlations with neutron star and neutron drop properties through advanced theoretical models.

## Contribution

It establishes new correlations between gravitational wave observations and nuclear matter properties, constraining symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities.

## Key findings

- Neutron star radius constrained to ≤12.94 km for 1.4 solar masses.
- Neutron drop radius constrained to ≤2.36 fm.
- Symmetry energy at twice saturation density constrained to ≤53.2 MeV.

## Abstract

Motivated by the historical detection of gravitational waves from GW170817, the neutron star and the neutron drop, i.e., a certain number of neutrons confined in an external field, are systematically investigated by ab initio calculations as well as the nonrelativistic and relativistic state-of-art density functional theories. Strong correlations are found among the neutron star tidal deformability, the neutron star radius, the root-mean-square radii of neutron drops, and the symmetry energies of nuclear matter at supra-saturation densities. From these correlations and the upper limit on the tidal deformability extracted from GW170817, the neutron star radii, the neutron drop radii, and the symmetry energy at twice saturation density are respectively constrained as $R_{1.4M_{\odot}}\leqslant 12.94$ km, $R_{\rm nd} \leqslant 2.36$ fm, and $E_{\mathrm{sym}}(2\rho_0) \leqslant 53.2$ MeV.