No Arabic abstract
Recently, the radius of neutron star (NS) PSR J0740+6620 was measured by NICER and an updated measurement of neutron skin thickness of ${}^{208}$Pb ($R_{rm skin}^{208}$) was reported by the PREX-II experiment. These new measurements can help us better understand the unknown equation of state (EoS) of dense matter. In this work, we adopt a hybrid parameterization method, which incorporates the nuclear empirical parameterization and some widely used phenomenological parameterizations, to analyze the results of nuclear experiments and astrophysical observations. With the joint Bayesian analysis of GW170817, PSR J0030+0451, and PSR J0740+6620, the parameters that characterize the ultra dense matter EoS are constrained. We find that the slope parameter $L$ is approximately constrained to $70_{-18}^{+21}$ MeV, which predicts $R_{rm skin}^{208}=0.204^{+0.030}_{-0.026},{rm fm}$ by using the universal relation between $R_{rm skin}^{208}$ and $L$. And the bulk properties of canonical $1.4,M_odot$ NS (e.g., $R_{1.4}$ and $Lambda_{1.4}$) as well as the pressure ($P_{2rho_{rm sat}}$) at two times the nuclear saturation density are well constrained by the data, i.e., $R_{1.4}$, $Lambda_{1.4}$, and $P_{2rho_{rm sat}}$ are approximately constrained to $12.3pm0.7$ km, $330_{-100}^{+140}$, and $4.1_{-1.2}^{+1.5}times10^{34},{rm dyn,cm^{-2}}$, respectively. Besides, we find that the Bayes evidences of the hybrid star and normal NS assumptions are comparable, which indicates that current observation data are compatible with quarkyonic matter existing in the core of massive star. Finally, in the case of normal NS assumption, we obtain a constraint for the maximum mass of nonrotating NS $M_{rm TOV}=2.30^{+0.30}_{-0.18}$ $M_odot$. All of the uncertainties reported above are for 68.3% credible levels.
By directly inverting several neutron star observables in the three-dimensional parameter space for the Equation of State of super-dense neutron-rich nuclear matter, we show that the lower radius limit for PSR J0740+6620 of mass $2.08pm 0.07~M_{odot}$ from Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER)s very recent observation sets a much tighter lower boundary than previously known for nuclear symmetry energy in the density range of $(1.0sim 3.0)$ times the saturation density $rho_0$ of nuclear matter. The super-soft symmetry energy leading to the formation of proton polarons in this density region of neutron stars is clearly disfavoured by the first radius measurement for the most massive neutron star observed reliably so far.
The symmetry energy obtained with the effective Skyrme energy density functional is related to the values of isoscalar effective mass and isovector effective mass, which is also indirectly related to the incompressibility of symmetric nuclear matter. In this work, we analyze the values of symmetry energy and its related nuclear matter parameters in five-dimensional parameter space by describing the heavy ion collision data, such as isospin diffusion data at 35 MeV/u and 50 MeV/u, neutron skin of $^{208}$Pb, and tidal deformability and maximum mass of neutron star. We obtain the parameter sets which can describe the isospin diffusion, neutron skin, tidal deformability and maximum mass of neutron star, and give the incompressibility $K_0$=250.23$pm$20.16 MeV, symmetry energy coefficient $S_0$=31.35$pm$2.08 MeV, the slope of symmetry energy $L$=59.57$pm$10.06 MeV, isoscalar effective mass $m_s^*/m$=0.75$pm$0.05 and quantity related to effective mass splitting $f_I$=0.005$pm$0.170. At two times normal density, the symmetry energy we obtained is in 35-55 MeV. To reduce the large uncertainties of $f_I$, more critical works in heavy ion collisions at different beam energies are needed.
In recent years our understanding of the dense matter equation of state (EOS) of neutron stars has significantly improved by analyzing multimessenger data from radio/X-ray pulsars, gravitational wave events, and from nuclear physics constraints. Here we study the additional impact on the EOS from the jointly estimated mass and radius of PSR J0740+6620, presented in Riley et al. (2021) by analyzing a combined dataset from X-ray telescopes NICER and XMM-Newton. We employ two different high-density EOS parameterizations: a piecewise-polytropic (PP) model and a model based on the speed of sound in a neutron star (CS). At nuclear densities these are connected to microscopic calculations of neutron matter based on chiral effective field theory interactions. In addition to the new NICER data for this heavy neutron star, we separately study constraints from the radio timing mass measurement of PSR J0740+6620, the gravitational wave events of binary neutron stars GW190425 and GW170817, and for the latter the associated kilonova AT2017gfo. By combining all these, and the NICER mass-radius estimate of PSR J0030+0451 we find the radius of a 1.4 solar mass neutron star to be constrained to the 95% credible ranges 12.33^{+0.76}_{-0.81} km (PP model) and 12.18^{+0.56}_{-0.79} km (CS model). In addition, we explore different chiral effective field theory calculations and show that the new NICER results provide tight constraints for the pressure of neutron star matter at around twice saturation density, which shows the power of these observations to constrain dense matter interactions at intermediate densities.
Using the very recently reported mass $2.14^{+0.10}_{-0.09}M_odot$ of PSR J0740+6620 together with the data of finite nuclei and the constraints on the equation of state of symmetric nuclear matter at suprasaturation densities from flow data in heavy-ion collisions, we show that the symmetry energy $E_{rm sym}(n)$ cannot be supersoft so that it becomes negative at suprasaturation densities in neutron stars (NSs) and thus may make the NS have a pure neutron matter core. This is in contrast to the fact that using the mass $2.01 pm 0.04 M_odot$ of PSR J0348+0432 as the NS maximum mass cannot rule out the supersoft high-density $E_{rm sym}(n)$. Furthermore, we find the stiffer high-density $E_{rm sym}(n)$ based on the existence of $2.14M_odot$ NSs leads to a strong constraint of $Lambda_{1.4} ge 348^{+88}_{-51}$ for the dimensionless tidal deformability of the canonical $1.4M_odot$ NS.
In the past few years, new observations of neutron stars and neutron-star mergers have provided a wealth of data that allow one to constrain the equation of state of nuclear matter at densities above nuclear saturation density. However, most observations were based on neutron stars with masses of about 1.4 solar masses, probing densities up to $sim$ 3-4 times the nuclear saturation density. Even higher densities are probed inside massive neutron stars such as PSR J0740+6620. Very recently, new radio observations provided an update to the mass estimate for PSR J0740+6620 and X-ray observations by the NICER and XMM telescopes constrained its radius. Based on these new measurements, we revisit our previous nuclear-physics multi-messenger astrophysics constraints and derive updated constraints on the equation of state describing the neutron-star interior. By combining astrophysical observations of two radio pulsars, two NICER measurements, the two gravitational-wave detections GW170817 and GW190425, detailed modeling of the kilonova AT2017gfo, as well as the gamma-ray burst GRB170817A, we are able to estimate the radius of a typical 1.4-solar mass neutron star to be $11.94^{+0.76}_{-0.87} rm{km}$ at 90% confidence. Our analysis allows us to revisit the upper bound on the maximum mass of neutron stars and disfavours the presence of a strong first-order phase transition from nuclear matter to exotic forms of matter, such as quark matter, inside neutron stars.