Understand
The LIGO-Virgo collaboration ground-breaking detection of the binary neutron-star merger event, GW170817, has intensified efforts towards the understanding of the equation of state (EoS) of nuclear matter.
- In this letter, we compare directly the density-pressure constraint on the EoS obtained from a recent analysis of the neutron-star merger event to density-pressure constraints obtained from nuclear physics experiments.
- To relate constraints from nuclear physics to the radii and the tidal deformabilities of neutron stars, we use a large collection of Skyrme density functionals that describe properties of nuclei to calculate properties of 1.4 solar maass neutron stars.
- We find that restricting this set of Skyrme equations of state to density functionals that describe nuclear masses, isobaric analog states, and low energy nuclear reactions does not sufficiently restrict the predicted neutron-star radii and the tidal deformabilities.