Finite-temperature infinite matter with effective-field-theory-inspired energy-density functionals

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of EFT-inspired energy-density functionals, YGLO and ELYO, in modeling finite-temperature properties of infinite matter, comparing results with ab-initio models to determine their reliability at various densities and temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces and assesses the YGLO and ELYO functionals for finite-temperature infinite matter, highlighting ELYO's improved accuracy due to a higher neutron effective mass.

Findings

ELYO functional aligns better with ab-initio models at higher densities and temperatures.

Both functionals are reliable at low densities and moderate temperatures.

Effective mass influences the accuracy of finite-temperature predictions.

Abstract

Finite-temperature infinite matter is analyzed with the recently introduced effective-fieldtheory(EFT)-inspired YGLO (Yang-Grasso-Lacroix-Orsay) and ELYO (extended Lee-Yang, Orsay) functionals, which are designed to describe very low-density regimes in symmetric (YGLO) and in pure neutron (YGLO and ELYO) matter. The article deals with neutron matter and aims to verify whether the use of these functionals allows us to correctly incorporate finite-temperature effects. We compare our results for some relevant thermodynamical quantities with the corresponding ones computed with a chosen reference ab-initio model, namely the many-body-perturbation-theory scheme. We validate the reliability of both EFT-inspired functionals at least at rather low densities and not too high temperatures and we discuss the effects related to the effective mass. We conclude that, at the present stage, the ELYO functional, having a higher neutron effective mass around saturation (closer to ab-initio values), allows us to describe finite-temperature properties more satisfactorily, in better agreement with ab-initio predictions up to higher densities and temperatures, compared to YGLO.