Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Density dependence of the symmetry energy in the post–PREX-CREX era

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2377933· OSTI ID:2377933
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
  2. Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY (United States)
  3. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  4. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
The recently published CREX results suggest a rather peculiar picture for the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Whereas PREX favors a large neutron skin thickness in 208Pb, thereby suggesting a stiff equation of state, CREX suggests instead a much softer equation of state. This discrepancy has caused a large spur in the theoretical community, since no model has been able to simultaneously reproduce within 1σ the PREX and CREX results. Motivated by a novel correlation between a CREX observable and a combination of bulk symmetry energy parameters, we calibrate three new covariant energy density functionals that reproduce binding energies and charge radii of spherical nuclei—and also accommodate the constraints imposed by PREX and CREX. Given that these models suggest a stiff equation of state at high densities, predictions for neutron star properties are also discussed.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
DOE Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; FG02-87ER40365; FG02-92ER40750; SC0008808
OSTI ID:
2377933
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--23-33717
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Density dependence of the symmetry energy in the post–PREX-CREX era
Journal Article · Tue Mar 12 20:00:00 EDT 2024 · Physical Review. C · OSTI ID:2338306

Role of the isovector spin-orbit potential in mitigating the CREX-PREX dilemma
Journal Article · Mon Jul 07 20:00:00 EDT 2025 · Physical Review. C · OSTI ID:3018215