Effects of nuclear symmetry energy and equation of state on neutron star properties

TL;DR

This study investigates how nuclear symmetry energy and the equation of state influence neutron star properties like mass, radius, and deformability, emphasizing the importance of self-consistent modeling of crust and core segments.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent approach to modeling neutron star crusts and cores using relativistic mean-field models, highlighting the impact of symmetry energy on observable properties.

Findings

Neutron star radii are significantly affected by the crust segment.

Core EOS strongly influences neutron star radii.

The correlation between radius and symmetry energy slope varies between crust and core.

Abstract

We study the effects of nuclear symmetry energy on the mass-radius relation and tidal deformability of neutron stars, considering the self-consistency of the equation of state (EOS). We first construct a set of unified EOSs based on relativistic mean-field models with different density dependence of the symmetry energy. For the description of pasta phases appearing in the inner crust of neutron stars, we perform a self-consistent Thomas-Fermi calculation using the same nuclear interaction as that for the uniform matter in the core. To examine possible effects from the self-consistency of the EOS on neutron-star properties, we separately investigate the impacts of crust and core segments. By matching the same core EOS to different crust EOSs, it is found that neutron-star radii are significantly affected by the crust segment. On the other hand, the neutron-star radii are also strongly dependent on the core EOS. However, the correlation between the radius and the symmetry energy slope of the core EOS is opposite to that of the crust EOS. It is likely that the nuclear model with a small slope parameter is favored by recent astrophysical observations.