No Arabic abstract
We compute from chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions the energy per particle of symmetric nuclear matter and pure neutron matter at third-order in perturbation theory including self-consistent second-order single-particle energies. Particular attention is paid to the third-order particle-hole ring-diagram, which is often neglected in microscopic calculations of the equation of state. We provide semi-analytic expressions for the direct terms from central and tensor model-type interactions that are useful as theoretical benchmarks. We investigate uncertainties arising from the order-by-order convergence in both many-body perturbation theory and the chiral expansion. Including also variations in the resolution scale at which nuclear forces are resolved, we provide new error bands on the equation of state, the isospin-asymmetry energy, and its slope parameter. We find in particular that the inclusion of third-order diagrams reduces the theoretical uncertainty at low densities, while in general the largest error arises from omitted higher-order terms in the chiral expansion of the nuclear forces.
We present predictions for the equation of state of symmetric nuclear and pure neutron matter based on recent high-quality nucleon-nucleon potentials from leading order to fifth order in the chiral expansion. We include as well the next-to-next-to-leading order (N2LO) chiral three-nucleon force whose low-energy constants cD and cE are fitted to the binding energies of 3H and 3He as well as the b{eta}-decay lifetime of 3H. The ground state energy per particle is computed in the particle- particle ladder approximation up to a few times saturation density. Due to the soft character of the interactions, uncertainties due to the convergence in many-body perturbation theory are small. We find that nuclear matter saturation is reproduced quantitatively at N3LO and N4LO, and therefore we encourage the application of these interactions in finite nuclei, where the description of ground- state energies and charge radii of medium-mass nuclei may be improved.
The Equation of State (EoS) of dense matter represents a central issue in the study of compact astrophysical objects and heavy ion reactions at intermediate and relativistic energies. We have derived a nuclear EoS with nucleons and hyperons within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach, and joined it with quark matter EoS. For that, we have employed the MIT bag model, as well as the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) and the Color Dielectric (CD) models, and found that the NS maximum masses are not larger than 1.7 solar masses. A comparison with available data supports the idea that dense matter EoS should be soft at low density and quite stiff at high density.
{it Background.} We investigate possible correlations between neutron star observables and properties of atomic nuclei. Particularly, we explore how the tidal deformability of a 1.4 solar mass neutron star, $M_{1.4}$, and the neutron skin thickness of ${^{48}}$Ca and ${^{208}}$Pb are related to the stellar radius and the stiffness of the symmetry energy. {it Methods.} We examine a large set of nuclear equations of state based on phenomenological models (Skyrme, NLWM, DDM) and {it ab-initio} theoretical methods (BBG, Dirac-Brueckner, Variational, Quantum Monte Carlo). {it Results.} We find strong correlations between tidal deformability and NS radius, whereas a weaker correlation does exist with the stiffness of the symmetry energy. Regarding the neutron skin thickness, weak correlations appear both with the stiffness of the symmetry energy, and the radius of a $M_{1.4}$. {it Conclusion.} The tidal deformability of a $M_{1.4}$ and the neutron-skin thickness of atomic nuclei show some degree of correlation with nuclear and astrophysical observables, which however depends on the ensemble of adopted EoS.
The Bethe-Brueckner-Goldstone many-body theory of the Nuclear Equation of State is reviewed in some details. In the theory, one performs an expansion in terms of the Brueckner two-body scattering matrix and an ordering of the corresponding many-body diagrams according to the number of their hole-lines. Recent results are reported, both for symmetric and for pure neutron matter, based on realistic two-nucleon interactions. It is shown that there is strong evidence of convergence in the expansion. Once three-body forces are introduced, the phenomenological saturation point is reproduced and the theory is applied to the study of neutron star properties. One finds that in the interior of neutron stars the onset of hyperons strongly softens the Nuclear Equation of State. As a consequence, the maximum mass of neutron stars turns out to be at the lower limit of the present phenomenological observation.
Born in the aftermath of core collapse supernovae, neutron stars contain matter under extraordinary conditions of density and temperature that are difficult to reproduce in the laboratory. In recent years, neutron star observations have begun to yield novel insights into the nature of strongly interacting matter in the high-density regime where current theoretical models are challenged. At the same time, chiral effective field theory has developed into a powerful framework to study nuclear matter properties with quantified uncertainties in the moderate-density regime for modeling neutron stars. In this article, we review recent developments in chiral effective field theory and focus on many-body perturbation theory as a computationally efficient tool for calculating the properties of hot and dense nuclear matter. We also demonstrate how effective field theory enables statistically meaningful comparisons between nuclear theory predictions, nuclear experiments, and observational constraints on the nuclear equation of state.