Relativistic effective interaction for nuclei, giant resonances, and neutron stars

Understand

Nuclear effective interactions are useful tools in astrophysical applications especially if one can guide the extrapolations to the extremes regions of isospin and density that are required to simulate dense, neutron-rich systems.

• Isospin extrapolations may be constrained in the laboratory by measuring the neutron skin thickness of a heavy nucleus, such as 208Pb.
• Similarly, future observations of massive neutron stars will constrain the extrapolations to the high-density domain.
• In this contribution we introduce a new relativistic effective interaction that is simultaneously constrained by the properties of finite nuclei, their collective excitations, and neutron-star properties.