Measurement of the nuclear symmetry energy parameters from gravitational wave events

Understand

The nuclear symmetry energy plays a role in determining both the nuclear properties of terrestrial matter as well as the astrophysical properties of neutron stars.

• The first measurement of the neutron star tidal deformability, from gravitational wave event GW170817, provides a new way of probing the symmetry energy.
• In this work, we report on new constraints on the symmetry energy from GW170817.
• We focus in particular on the low-order coefficients: namely, the value of the symmetry energy at the nuclear saturation density, S_0, and the slope of the symmetry energy, L_0.