2025/11/24 by Ren, Shiyue, Lin, Lap-Ming
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Scientific Research and Discoveries
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.18681
openalex publication_date 2025/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/11/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The trace anomaly Δ is an important quantity that measures the broken conformal symmetry in neutron star matter. In this work, we present quasi-universal relations that connect the stellar profile of Δ to the compactness, moment of inertia, and tidal deformability of neutron stars. We apply the quasi-universal relations to determine the trace anomaly profiles for PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620 based on their mass-radius measurements. We also analyze PSR J0737-3039A according to its moment of inertia inferred from Bayesian modeling of nuclear equation of state. A recent multimessenger constraint on the tidal deformability is also studied, resulting in an estimate value of the trace anomaly Δc = 0.1770+0.0365-0.0432 at the center of a 1.4M_\odot canonical neutron star. It is expected that more precise observations from both electromagnetic and gravitational-wave channels in the future will provide tighter constraints on the behavior of Δ inside neutron stars.