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Title: Symmetry Parameter Constraints from a Lower Bound on Neutron-matter Energy

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

We propose the existence of a lower bound on the energy of pure neutron matter (PNM) on the basis of unitary-gas considerations. We discuss its justification from experimental studies of cold atoms as well as from theoretical studies of neutron matter. We demonstrate that this bound results in limits to the density-dependent symmetry energy, which is the difference between the energies of symmetric nuclear matter and PNM. In particular, this bound leads to a lower limit to the volume symmetry energy parameter S 0. In addition, for assumed values of S 0 above this minimum, this bound implies both upper and lower limits to the symmetry energy slope parameter L ,which describes the lowest-order density dependence of the symmetry energy. A lower bound on neutron-matter incompressibility is also obtained. These bounds are found to be consistent with both recent calculations of the energies of PNM and constraints from nuclear experiments. Our results are significant because several equations of state that are currently used in astrophysical simulations of supernovae and neutron star mergers, as well as in nuclear physics simulations of heavy-ion collisions, have symmetry energy parameters that violate these bounds. Furthermore, below the nuclear saturation density, the bound on neutron-matter energies leads to a lower limit to the density-dependent symmetry energy, which leads to upper limits to the nuclear surface symmetry parameter and the neutron-star crust–core boundary. We also obtain a lower limit to the neutron-skin thicknesses of neutron-rich nuclei. Above the nuclear saturation density, the bound on neutron-matter energies also leads to an upper limit to the symmetry energy, with implications for neutron-star cooling via the direct Urca process.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-00ER41132; FG02-87ER40317
OSTI ID:
1537293
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 848, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 188 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (54)

Nuclear Equation of State for Compact Stars and Supernovae book January 2018
How tightly is the nuclear symmetry energy constrained by a unitary Fermi gas? journal November 2017
The State of Matter in Simulations of Core-Collapse supernovae—Reflections and Recent Developments journal January 2017
The impact of the crust equation of state on the analysis of GW170817 journal December 2019
Equations of state for astrophysical simulations from generalized relativistic density functionals journal September 2018
Signatures for quark matter from multi-messenger observations journal October 2019
A successful 3D core-collapse supernova explosion model journal September 2018
Revival of the fittest: exploding core-collapse supernovae from 12 to 25 M⊙ journal March 2018
Temporal and angular variations of 3D core-collapse supernova emissions and their physical correlations journal August 2019
The overarching framework of core-collapse supernova explosions as revealed by 3D fornax simulations journal November 2019
The impact of non-dipolar magnetic fields in core-collapse supernovae journal December 2019
Three-dimensional supernova explosion simulations of 9-, 10-, 11-, 12-, and 13-M⊙ stars journal February 2019
Relativistic self-energy decomposition of nuclear symmetry energy and equation of state of neutron matter within QCD sum rules journal August 2019
Static response, collective frequencies, and ground-state thermodynamical properties of spin-saturated two-component cold atoms and neutron matter journal January 2018
Neutron matter within QCD sum rules journal May 2018
Future prospects for constraining nuclear matter parameters with gravitational waves journal July 2019
Hypernuclear stars from relativistic Hartree-Fock density functional theory journal August 2018
Extracting nuclear symmetry energies at high densities from observations of neutron stars and gravitational waves journal March 2019
Confronting gravitational-wave observations with modern nuclear physics constraints journal June 2019
Towards understanding astrophysical effects of nuclear symmetry energy journal July 2019
Bayesian modeling of the nuclear equation of state for neutron star tidal deformabilities and GW170817 journal November 2019
Neutron Star Mass and Radius Measurements journal June 2019
Implications of the Mass $M={2.17}_{-0.10}^{+0.11}$ M of PSR J0740+6620 on the Equation of State of Super-dense Neutron-rich Nuclear Matter journal July 2019
Bayesian Inference of High-density Nuclear Symmetry Energy from Radii of Canonical Neutron Stars journal October 2019
The Equation of State and Some Key Parameters of Neutron Stars: Constraints from GW170817, the Nuclear Data, and the Low-mass X-Ray Binary Data journal October 2019
Influence of Density Dependence of Symmetry Energy in Hot and Dense Matter for Supernova Simulations journal December 2019
The Masses of Isolated Neutron Stars Inferred from the Gravitational Redshift Measurements journal January 2020
A General-relativistic Determination of the Threshold Mass to Prompt Collapse in Binary Neutron Star Mergers journal February 2019
Constraining the properties of dense matter and neutron stars by combining nuclear physics and gravitational waves from GW170817
  • Tews, I.; Margueron, J.; Reddy, S.
  • XIAMEN-CUSTIPEN WORKSHOP ON THE EQUATION OF STATE OF DENSE NEUTRON-RICH MATTER IN THE ERA OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ASTRONOMY, AIP Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5117799
conference January 2019
Equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter using re-projected nucleon–nucleon potentials journal April 2018
Correlations among symmetry energy elements in Skyrme models journal September 2018
Combined Constraints on the Equation of State of Dense Neutron-rich Matter from Terrestrial Nuclear Experiments and Observations of Neutron Stars journal May 2018
Cooling Timescale for Protoneutron Stars and Properties of Nuclear Matter: Effective Mass and Symmetry Energy at High Densities journal June 2019
Comparing Treatments of Weak Reactions with Nuclei in Simulations of Core-collapse Supernovae journal February 2019
A NICER View of PSR J0030+0451: Millisecond Pulsar Parameter Estimation journal December 2019
The equation of state for dense nucleonic matter from a metamodeling. I. Foundational aspects text January 2017
Heavy Nuclei as Thermal Insulation for Proto-Neutron Stars text January 2017
The state of matter in simulations of core-collapse supernovae -- Reflections and recent developments text January 2017
Revival of the Fittest: Exploding Core-Collapse Supernovae from 12 to 25 M$_{\odot}$ text January 2018
Nuclear Equation of state for Compact Stars and Supernovae text January 2018
On the effect of high order empirical parameters on the nuclear equation of state text January 2018
Distinguishing the nature of comparable-mass neutron star binary systems with multimessenger observations: GW170817 case study text January 2018
A Successful 3D Core-Collapse Supernova Explosion Model text January 2018
Correlations among symmetry energy elements in Skyrme models text January 2018
Tidal deformability with sharp phase transitions in (binary) neutron stars text January 2018
Constraining nuclear matter parameters with GW170817 text January 2018
Comparing treatments of weak reactions with nuclei in simulations of core-collapse supernovae text January 2018
A General-relativistic Determination of the Threshold Mass to Prompt Collapse in Binary Neutron Star Mergers text January 2019
Three-Dimensional Supernova Explosion Simulations of 9-, 10-, 11-, 12-, and 13-M$_{\odot}$ Stars text January 2019
The impact of the crust equation of state on the analysis of GW170817 text January 2019
Relativistic self-energy decomposition of nuclear symmetry energy and equation of state of neutron matter within QCD sum rules text January 2019
Signatures for quark matter from multi-messenger observations text January 2019
Cooling timescale for protoneutron stars and properties of nuclear matter: Effective mass and symmetry energy at high densities text January 2019
Effects of nuclear symmetry energy and equation of state on neutron star properties text January 2019

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