2009/08/31 by William G. Newton, W. G. Newton, Bao-An Li +1
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.SR #nucl-ex #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevc.80.065809
published as Phys.Rev.C80:065809,2009 · 18 pages, 4 figures
openalex publication_date 2009/12/28 · arxiv created 2010/01/10 · arxiv updated 2010/01/13 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We show that the gravitational binding energy of a neutron star of a given mass is correlated with the slope of the nuclear symmetry energy at 1--2 times nuclear saturation density for equations of state without significant softening (i.e., those that predict maximum masses Mmax>1.44M_\ensuremath\bigodot in line with the largest accurately measured neutron star mass). Applying recent laboratory constraints on the slope of the symmetry energy to this correlation we extract a constraint on the baryon mass of the lower mass member of the double pulsar binary system, PSR J0737-3039B. We compare with independent constraints derived from modeling the progenitor star of J0737-3039B up to and through its collapse under the assumption that it formed in an electron capture supernova. The two sets of constraints are consistent only if L\ensuremath\lesssim 70 MeV.