An Undergraduate Approach to the Quantum Hadrodynamics and the Physics of Neutron Stars

TL;DR

This tutorial introduces undergraduate students to modeling neutron stars using Quantum Hadrodynamics, focusing on meson roles, equations of state, and numerical analysis to understand neutron star properties.

Contribution

It provides an accessible, student-friendly approach to quantum hadrodynamics applied to neutron stars, emphasizing analytical and numerical methods for educational purposes.

Findings

Effect of meson coupling constants on the equation of state

Numerical analysis of meson contributions to neutron star structure

Educational framework for quantum hadrodynamics in astrophysics

Abstract

In this tutorial, I discuss how to model a neutron star from the Quantum Hadrodynamics microscopic approach. After a brief discussion about hydrostatic equilibrium, I discuss the role of each meson of the model and how to calculate the corresponding equation of state and the expected values. Each meson is introduced individually. Its effects are analyzed from both an analytical and a numerical point of view. To explicitly show the effects of a given meson, the coupling constant is varied in an arbitrary range before being fixed to reproduce well-known constraints. This work is intended for late undergraduate students as well as early graduate students. The equation of states is obtained from the statistical mechanics formalism, which is more familiar to students at this stage of their research career, instead of the traditional quantum field theory formalism.