From nuclear structure to neutron stars

Abstract

Recent progress in quantum Monte Carlo with modern nucleon-nucleon interactions have enabled the successful description of properties of light nuclei and neutron-rich matter. As a demonstration, we show that the agreement between theoretical calculations of the charge form factor of 12C and the experimental data is excellent. Applying similar methods to isospin-asymmetric systems allows one to describe neutrons confined in an external potential and homogeneous neutron-rich matter. Of particular interest is the nuclear symmetry energy, the energy cost of creating an isospin asymmetry. Combining these advances with recent observations of neutron star masses and radii gives insight into the equation of state of neutron-rich matter near and above the saturation density. In particular, neutron star radius measurements constrain the derivative of the symmetry energy.

14 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of the International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC), 2-7 June 2013, Firenze, Italy

References in corpus (19)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
• The Neutron Star Mass-Radius Relation and the Equation of State of Dense Matter
• Astrophysical Measurement of the Equation of State of Neutron Star Matter
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• Equation of state of low--density neutron matter and the ${}^1{S}_0$ pairing gap
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• Monte Carlo Calculation for the neutron-rich Ca isotopes