Why is the nuclear symmetry energy so uncertain at supra-saturation densities?

Understand

Within the interacting Fermi gas model for isospin asymmetric nuclear matter, effects of the in-medium three-body interaction and the two-body short-range tensor force due to the $\rho$ meson exchange as well as the short-range nucleon correlation on the high-density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy are demonstrated respectively in a transparent way.

• Possible physics origins of the extremely uncertain nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities are discussed.