Quantum Nuclear Pasta and Nuclear Symmetry Energy

Understand

Complex and exotic nuclear geometries are expected to appear naturally in dense nuclear matter found in the crust of neutron stars and supernovae environment collectively referred to as nuclear pasta.

• The pasta geometries depend on the average baryon density, proton fraction and temperature and are critically important in the determination of many transport properties of matter in supernovae and the crust of neutron stars.
• Using a set of self-consistent microscopic nuclear energy density functionals we present the first results of large scale quantum simulations of pasta phases at baryon densities $0.03 \leq \rho \leq 0.10$ fm$^{-3}$, proton fractions $0.05 \leq Y_p \leq 0.40$, and zero temperature.
• The full quantum simulations, in particular, allow us to thoroughly investigate the role and impact of the nuclear symmetry energy on pasta configurations.