No Arabic abstract
Interpreting high-energy, astrophysical phenomena, such as supernova explosions or neutron-star collisions, requires a robust understanding of matter at supranuclear densities. However, our knowledge about dense matter explored in the cores of neutron stars remains limited. Fortunately, dense matter is not only probed in astrophysical observations, but also in terrestrial heavy-ion collision experiments. In this work, we use Bayesian inference to combine data from astrophysical multi-messenger observations of neutron stars and from heavy-ion collisions of gold nuclei at relativistic energies with microscopic nuclear theory calculations to improve our understanding of dense matter. We find that the inclusion of heavy-ion collision data indicates an increase in the pressure in dense matter relative to previous analyses, shifting neutron-star radii towards larger values, consistent with recent NICER observations. Our findings show that constraints from heavy-ion collision experiments show a remarkable consistency with multi-messenger observations and provide complementary information on nuclear matter at intermediate densities. This work combines nuclear theory, nuclear experiment, and astrophysical observations, and shows how joint analyses can shed light on the properties of neutron-rich supranuclear matter over the density range probed in neutron stars.
We study the properties of hot beta-stable nuclear matter using equations of state derived within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach at finite temperature including consistent three-body forces. Simple and accurate parametrizations of the finite-temperature equations of state are provided. The properties of hot neutron stars are then investigated within this framework, in particular the temperature dependence of the maximum mass. We find very small temperature effects and analyze the interplay of the different contributions.
We present a quantitative analysis of superfluidity and superconductivity in dense matter from observations of isolated neutron stars in the context of the minimal cooling model. Our new approach produces the best fit neutron triplet superfluid critical temperature, the best fit proton singlet superconducting critical temperature, and their associated statistical uncertainties. We find that the neutron triplet critical temperature is likely $2.09^{+4.37}_{-1.41} times 10^{8}$ K and that the proton singlet critical temperature is $7.59^{+2.48}_{-5.81} times 10^{9}$ K. However, we also show that this result only holds if the Vela neutron star is not included in the data set. If Vela is included, the gaps increase significantly to attempt to reproduce Velas lower temperature given its young age. Further including neutron stars believed to have carbon atmospheres increases the neutron critical temperature and decreases the proton critical temperature. Our method demonstrates that continued observations of isolated neutron stars can quantitatively constrain the nature of superfluidity in dense matter.
We model the cooling of hybrid neutron stars combining a microscopic nuclear equation of state in the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach with different quark models. We then analyze the neutron star cooling curves predicted by the different models and single out the preferred ones. We find that the possibility of neutron p-wave pairing can be excluded in our scenario.
We examine the correlations of neutron star radii with the nuclear matter incompressibility, symmetry energy, and their slopes, which are the key parameters of the equation of state (EoS) of asymmetric nuclear matter. The neutron star radii and the EoS parameters are evaluated using a representative set of 24 Skyrme-type effective forces and 18 relativistic mean field models, and two microscopic calculations, all describing 2$M_odot$ neutron stars. Unified EoSs for the inner-crust-core region have been built for all the phenomenological models, both relativistic and non-relativistic. Our investigation shows the existence of a strong correlation of the neutron star radii with the linear combination of the slopes of the nuclear matter incompressibility and the symmetry energy coefficients at the saturation density. Such correlations are found to be almost independent of the neutron star mass in the range $0.6text{-}1.8M_{odot}$. This correlation can be linked to the empirical relation existing between the star radius and the pressure at a nucleonic density between one and two times saturation density, and the dependence of the pressure on the nuclear matter incompressibility, its slope and the symmetry energy slope. The slopes of the nuclear matter incompressibility and the symmetry energy coefficients as estimated from the finite nuclei data yield the radius of a $1.4M_{odot}$ neutron star in the range $11.09text{-}12.86$ km.
We perform a systematic study of the dependence of the r-mode phenomenology in normal fluid pulsar neutron stars on the symmetry energy slope parameter $L$. An essential ingredient in this study is the bulk viscosity, which is evaluated consistently for several equations of state corresponding to different values of the slope parameter $L$. Direct Urca processes, which are allowed from a critical $L$-value onwards, enhance the bulk viscosity and have large influence on the $r$-mode features, such as the instability boundary and spin-down properties of newborn neutron stars. The magnitude of the changes in the $r$-mode properties induced by the direct Urca processes are driven by the $L$-value of the equation of state and the mass of the pulsar. The study has been done by using a family of equations of state of $beta$-equilibrated neutron star matter obtained with the finite range simple effective interaction, which provides realistic results for nuclear matter and finite nuclei properties. These equations of state predict the same properties in symmetric nuclear matter and have the same value of the symmetry energy parameter, $E_s(rho_0)$, but differ in the slope parameter $L$. The range chosen for the variation of $L$ is decided from the tidal deformability data extracted from the GW170817 event and the maximum mass constraint.