2018/01/31 by Plamen G. Krastev, Bao-An Li · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #nucl-th #astro-ph.HE #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1361-6471/ab1a7a
published as J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 46 074001 (2019) · 20 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Added new results and discussions, JPG (2019) in press
arxiv created 2019/03/26 · arxiv updated 2019/06/05
Applying an equation of state (EOS) with its symmetric nuclear matter (SNM) contribution and low-density symmetry energy Esym(ρ) constrained by heavy-ion reaction data, we calculate the dimensionless tidal deformability Λ of neutron stars in coalescing binary systems. Corresponding to the partially constrained EOS that previously predicted a radius of 11.5 km ≤ R1.4 ≤ 13.6 km for canonical neutron-star configurations, Λ is found to be in the range of 292 ≤Λ1.4≤ 680, consistent with the very recent observation of the GW170817 event. We investigate the effect of the high-density behavior of Esym(ρ) on the tidal properties of neutron stars and find that while Λ depends strongly on the details of the symmetry energy, different trends of Esym(ρ) lead to very similar values of Λ. In particular, the transition from stiff/soft to soft/stiff Esym(ρ) could yield the same Λ. Thus, measuring Λ alone may not determine completely the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Coherent analyses of the dense neutron-rich nuclear matter EOS underlying both nuclear laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations are therefore necessary to break this degeneracy and determine precisely the details of the Esym(ρ).