Critical properties of calibrated relativistic mean-field models for the transition to warm, non-homogeneous nuclear matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates the critical properties of different calibrated relativistic mean-field models for the transition to warm, asymmetric, non-homogeneous nuclear matter, highlighting significant differences in properties relevant to neutron stars.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of various equations of state and their predictions for the transition to non-homogeneous nuclear matter in astrophysical contexts.

Findings

Different models predict varying transition densities for beta-equilibrated matter.

Properties of asymmetric nuclear matter differ significantly across models.

These differences impact the understanding of supernova and neutron star merger evolution.

Abstract

The critical properties for the transition to warm, asymmetric, non-homogeneous nuclear matter are analysed within a thermodynamical spinodal approach for a set of well calibrated equations of state. It is shown that even though different equations of state are constrained by the same experimental, theoretical and observational data, and the properties of symmetric nuclear matter are similar within the models, the properties of very asymmetric nuclear matter, such as the one found inside of neutron stars, differ a lot for various models. Some models predict larger transition densities to homogeneous matter for beta-equilibrated matter than for symmetric nuclear matter. Since one expects that such properties have a noticeable impact on the the evolution of either a supernova or neutron star merger, this different behavior should be understood in more detail.