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J. -B. Wei

Publications and source records attributed to J. -B. Wei.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

Neutron Stars and the Nuclear Equation of State

We review the current status and recent progress of microscopic many-body approaches and phenomenological models, which are employed to construct the equation of state of neutron stars. The equation of state is relevant for the description of their structure and dynamical properties, and it rules also the dynamics of core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers. We describe neutron star matter assuming that the main degrees of freedom are nucleons and hyperons, disregarding the appearance of quark matter. We compare the theoretical predictions of the different equation-of-state models with the currently available data coming from both terrestrial laboratory experiments and recent astrophysical observations. We also analyse the importance of the nuclear strong interaction and equation of state for the cooling properties of neutron stars. We discuss the main open challenges in the description of the equation of state, mainly focusing on the limits of the different many-body techniques, the so-called "hyperon puzzle," and the dependence of the direct URCA processes on the equation of state.

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Cooling of hybrid neutron stars with microscopic equations of state

We model the cooling of hybrid neutron stars combining a microscopic nuclear equation of state in the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach with different quark models. We then analyze the neutron star cooling curves predicted by the different models and single out the preferred ones. We find that the possibility of neutron p-wave pairing can be excluded in our scenario.

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Are small radii of compact stars ruled out by GW170817/AT2017gfo?

The detection of GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterparts allows to constrain the equation of state of dense matter in new and complementary ways. Very stiff equations of state are ruled out by the upper limit on the average tidal deformability, $\tildeΛ\lesssim 800$, imposed by the detected gravitational wave signal. A lower limit, $\tildeΛ\gtrsim 400$, can also be extracted by considering the large amount of ejected matter which powers the kilonova AT2017gfo. By using several microscopic nucleonic equations of state, we first confirm the existence of a monotonic relation between $R_{1.5}$ (the radius of the $1.5M_{\odot}$ configuration) and $\tildeΛ$. This translates the limits on $\tildeΛ$ into limits on the radius: $11.8\,\text{km} \lesssim R_{1.5} \lesssim 13.1\,$km. We then show that the monotonic relation is violated, if a second branch of compact stars composed of quark matter exists, as in the two-families or the twin-stars scenarios. In particular, it is possible to fulfill the limits on $\tildeΛ$ while having $R_{1.5}$ significantly smaller than $12\,$km. In both those scenarios the event GW170817/AT2017gfo originates from the merger of a hadronic star and a star containing quark matter.

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Constraints from the GW170817 merger event on the nuclear matter equation of state

The detection of the GW170817 neutron star merger event has incited an intense research activity towards the understanding of the nuclear matter equation of state. In this paper we compare in particular the pressure-density relation obtained from heavy-ion collisions with the analysis of the NS merger event. Moreover, we present recent calculations of neutron star's moment of inertia and tidal deformability using various microscopic equations of state for nuclear and hybrid star configurations, and confirm several universal relations. We also discuss the recent constraints for the NS radii determined by GW170817, and find compatible radii between 12 and 13 kilometers, thus identifying the suitable equations of state.

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Neutron star cooling with microscopic equations of state

We model neutron star cooling with several microscopic nuclear equations of state based on different nucleon-nucleon interactions and three-body forces, and compatible with the recent GW170817 neutron star merger event. They all feature strong direct Urca processes. We find that all models are able to describe well the current set of cooling data for isolated neutron stars, provided that large and extended proton 1S0 gaps and no neutron 3PF2 gaps are active in the stellar matter. We then analyze the neutron star mass distributions predicted by the different models and single out the preferred ones.

astro-ph.HE

Neutron star universal relations with microscopic equations of state

We calculate neutron star's moment of inertia and deformabilities using various microscopic equations of state for nuclear and hybrid star configurations. Correlations between the various observables are examined and we confirm several universal relations. We focus in particular on the constraints for the neutron star radii imposed by a determination of the average tidal deformability of the binary neutron star system GW170817. We find compatible radii between 12 and 13 kilometers and identify the suitable equations of state.

astro-ph.HE

Two-flavor hybrid stars with the Dyson-Schwinger quark model

We study the properties of two-flavor quark matter in the Dyson-Schwinger model and investigate the possible consequences for hybrid neutron stars, with particular regard to the two-solar-mass limit. We find that with some extreme values of the model parameters, the mass fraction of two-flavor quark matter in heavy neutron stars can be as high as 30 percent and the possible energy release during the conversion from nucleonic neutron stars to hybrid stars can reach $10^{52}\;$erg.

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Rotating hybrid stars with the Dyson-Schwinger quark model

We study rapidly rotating hybrid stars with the Dyson-Schwinger model for quark matter and the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock many-body theory with realistic two-body and three-body forces for nuclear matter. We determine the maximum gravitational mass, equatorial radius, and rotation frequency of stable stellar configurations by considering the constraints of the Keplerian limit and the secular axisymmetric instability, and compare with observational data. We also discuss the rotational evolution for constant baryonic mass, and find a spinup phenomenon for supramassive stars before they collapse to black holes.

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Hybrid neutron stars with the Dyson-Schwinger quark model and various quark-gluon vertices

We study cold dense quark matter and hybrid neutron stars with a Dyson-Schwinger quark model and various choices of the quark-gluon vertex. We obtain the equation of state of quark matter in beta equilibrium and investigate the hadron-quark phase transition in combination with a hadronic equation of state derived within the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock many-body theory. Comparing with the results for quark matter with the rainbow approximation, the Ball-Chiu ansatz and the 1BC ansatz for the quark-gluon vertex lead to a reduction of the effective interaction at finite chemical potential, qualitatively similar to the effect of our gluon propagator. We find that the phase transition and the equation of state of the quark or mixed phase and consequently the resulting hybrid star mass and radius depend mainly on a global reduction of the effective interaction due to effects of both the quark-gluon vertex and gluon propagator, but are not sensitive to the vertex ansatz.

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