2024/12/26 by Luqi Zhang, Yao Ma, Zhang, Lu-Qi +3 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.19023
openalex publication_date 2024/12/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Chiral effective theory has become a powerful tool for studying the low-energy properties of QCD. In this work, we apply an extended chiral effective theory -- chiral-scale effective theory -- including a dilatonic scalar meson to study nuclear matter and find that the properties around saturation density can be well reproduced. Compared to the traditionally used Walecka-type models in nuclear matter studies, our approach improves the behavior of symmetry energy and the incompressibility coefficient in describing empirical data without introducing additional freedoms. Moreover, the predicted neutron star structures fall within the constraints of GW170817, PSR J0740+6620, and PSR J0030+0451, while the maximum neutron star mass can reach about ~3M\odot with a pure hadronic phase. Additionally, we find that symmetry patterns of the effective theory significantly impact neutron star structures. %In chiral-scale effective theory, effective operators are well organized by chiral-scale orders and freedoms induced by QCD symmetry patterns. We believe that introducing this type of theory into nuclear matter studies can lead to a deeper understanding of QCD, nuclear matter, and compact astrophysical objects.