Strong correlation of the neutron star core-crust transition density with the $σ$-meson mass via vacuum polarization

Niu Li; Wei-Zhou Jiang; Jing Ye; Rong-Yao Yang; Si-Na Wei

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2023.137765

paper

Strong correlation of the neutron star core-crust transition density with the $σ$ -meson mass via vacuum polarization

arXiv:2302.04485 · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2023.137765

Abstract

We study the neutron star core-crust transition density $ρ_{t}$ with the inclusion of the vacuum polarization in the dielectric function in the nonlinear relativistic Hartree approach (RHAn). It is found that the strong correlation between the $ρ_{t}$ and the scalar meson mass $m_{σ}$ strikingly overwhelms the uncertainty of the nuclear equation of state in the RHAn models, in contrast to the usual awareness that $ρ_{t}$ is predominantly sensitive to the isovector nuclear potential and symmetry energy. The accurate extraction of $ρ_{t}$ through the future gravitational wave measurements can thus provide a strong constraint on the longstanding uncertainty of $m_{σ}$ , which is of significance to better infer the vacuum property. As an astrophysical implication, it suggests that the correlation between $ρ_{t}$ and $m_{σ}$ is very favorable to reconcile the difficulty in reproducing the large crustal moment of inertia for the pulsar glitches with the well constrained symmetry energy.

11 pages, 4 figures

Strong correlation of the neutron star core-crust transition density with the σ-meson mass via vacuum polarization

Abstract

References in corpus (15)

Strong correlation of the neutron star core-crust transition density with the $σ$ -meson mass via vacuum polarization