Tension between implications from PREX-2 data and gravitational tidal response on dense matter equation of state

Abstract

Recently an improved value of neutron skin thickness of $^{208}\text{Pb}$ was reported in Lead Radius EXperiment-2 (PREX-2) to be $R_{\text{skin}}=R_n - R_p=(0.283\pm 0.071)$ fm which corresponds to high estimations of nuclear symmetry energy ($E_{\text{sym}}$) and its slope ($L_{\text{sym}}$). The updated values of $E_{\text{sym}}$ and $L_{\text{sym}}$ commensurating to the neutron star observable estimations lie exterior to the astrophysical observed range. The higher values of $L_{\text{sym}}$ at $n_0$ deduced from recent PREX-2 data correlates to matter being easily deformable (yielding higher radius values) around intermediate matter densities leading to higher values of $\tilde{\Lambda}$ creating a tension between the terrestrial and astrophysical observations. In this study, we exploit this tension to constrain the $\Delta$-scalar meson coupling parameter space.