Inference of neutron-star properties with unified crust-core equations of state for parameter estimation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a numerical tool, CUTER, for consistently matching neutron star crust and core equations of state, reducing biases and uncertainties in neutron star property estimations from observational data.

Contribution

The authors develop and validate CUTER, a tool for consistent crust-core EoS matching, and demonstrate its importance in reducing biases in neutron star property inference.

Findings

Using inconsistent crust models causes biases in NS property estimates.

Consistent EoS matching reduces uncertainties in neutron star parameter inference.

Bayesian analysis quantifies the impact of crust treatment on EoS uncertainties.

Abstract

Relating different global neutron-star (NS) properties, such as tidal deformability and radius, or mass and radius, requires an equation of state (EoS). Determining the NS EoS is therefore not only the science goal of a variety of observational projects, but it also enters in the analysis process; for example, to predict a NS radius from a measured tidal deformability via gravitational waves (GW) during the inspiral of a binary NS merger. To this aim, it is important to estimate the theoretical uncertainties on the EoS, one of which is the possible bias coming from an inconsistent treatment of the low-density region; that is, the use of a so called non-unified NS crust. We propose a numerical tool allowing the user to consistently match a nuclear-physics informed crust to an arbitrary high-density EoS describing the core of the star. We introduce an inversion procedure of the EoS close to saturation density that allows users to extract nuclear-matter parameters and extend the EoS to lower densities in a consistent way. For the treatment of inhomogeneous matter in the crust, a standard approach based on the compressible liquid-drop (CLD) model approach was used in our work. A Bayesian analysis using a parametric agnostic EoS representation in the high-density region is also presented in order to quantify the uncertainties induced by an inconsistent treatment of the crust. We show that the use of a fixed, realistic-but-inconsistent model for the crust causes small but avoidable errors in the estimation of global NS properties and leads to an underestimation of the uncertainties in the inference of NS properties. Our results highlight the importance of employing a consistent EoS in inference schemes. The numerical tool that we developed to reconstruct such a thermodynamically consistent EoS, CUTER, has been tested and validated for use by the astrophysical community.