The isospin quartic term in the kinetic energy of neutron-rich nucleonic matter

Abstract

The energy of a free gas of neutrons and protons is well known to be approximately isospin parabolic with a negligibly small quartic term of only $0.45$ MeV at the saturation density of nuclear matter ${\rho }_0=0.16/{\mathrm{fm}}^3$. Using an isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution including a high (low) momentum tail (depletion) with its shape parameters constrained by recent high-energy electron scattering and medium-energy nuclear photodisintegration experiments as well as the state-of-the-art calculations of the deuteron wave function and the equation of state of pure neutron matter near the unitary limit within several modern microscopic many-body theories, we show for the first time that the kinetic energy of interacting nucleons in neutron-rich nucleonic matter has a significant quartic term of $7.18\pm 2.52\mathrm{MeV}$. Such a large quartic term has significant ramifications in determining the equation of state of neutron-rich nucleonic matter using both terrestrial and astrophysical observables.

Discussions and references added. Version accepted as a Rapid Communication in PRC

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• Probing proton transition momentum in neutron-rich matter
• Impacts of symmetry energy slope on the oscillation frequencies of neutron stars with short-range correlation and admixed dark matter
• Isospin dependence of nucleon effective masses in neutron-rich matter
• Investigating Effects of Relativistic Kinematics, Dimensionality, Interactions, and Short-Range Correlations on the Ratio of Quartic over Quadratic Nuclear Symmetry Energies
• Precise Measurement of Short-Range Correlations in Nuclei from Bremsstrahlung Gamma Ray Emission in Low-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Nucleon Short-Range Correlations and High-Momentum Dynamics: Implications on the Equation of State of Dense Matter
• Recent astrophysical observations reproduced by a short-range correlated van der Waals-type model?
• Neutron Star Equation of State with Nucleon Short-Range Correlations: A Concise Review and Open Issues
• Short-range correlation effects on the neutron star cooling