In this undergraduate project, f-mode oscillations in neutron stars are used to constrain the equation of state of dense matter. For the first time, a systematic investigation of the role of nuclear saturation parameters on the mode oscillations is performed. It is found that the uncertainty in the determination of effective nucleon mass plays the most significant role in controlling the f-mode frequencies. Correlations of the frequencies with astrophysical observables relevant for asteroseismology are also investigated. Future detection of f-mode frequencies could then provide a unique way of constraining nuclear empirical parameters and therefore the behaviour of dense matter.
Gravitational waves from neutron-star mergers are expected to provide stringent constraints on the structure of neutron stars. At the same time, recent advances in nuclear theory have enabled reliable calculations of the low density equation of state using effective field theory based Hamiltonians and advanced techniques to solve the quantum many-body problem. In this paper, we address how the first observation of gravitational waves from GW170817 can be combined with modern calculations of the equation of state to extract useful insights about the equation of state of matter encountered insid…
We utilise the phenomenologically parameterized piecewise polytropic equations of state to study various neutron star properties. We investigate the compliance of these equations of state with several astronomical observations. We also demonstrate that the theoretical estimates of the fractional moment of inertia cannot explain all the pulsar glitches observed. We model the crust as a solid spheroidal shell to calculate the fractional moment of inertia of fast-spinning neutron stars. We also show that the braking index obtained in a simple magnetic dipole radiation model with a varying moment …
In recent years, there have been several successful attempts to constrain the equation of state of neutron star matter using input from low-energy nuclear physics and observational data. We demonstrate that significant further restrictions can be placed by additionally requiring the pressure to approach that of deconfined quark matter at high densities. Remarkably, the new constraints turn out to be highly insensitive to the amount --- or even presence --- of quark matter inside the stars.
We try to constraints some of the nuclear matter parameters such as symmetry energy ($J$) and its slope ($L$) from the recent inferred data of the PREX-2. Other nuclear matter parameters are adopted from {\bf [Phys. Rev. C 85 035201 (2012), Phys. Rev. C 90 055203 (2014)]} papers and the linear correlation among them are checked by using the Pearson's formula. We find the correlation between $J-L$, $K_τ-J$ and $K_τ-L$ with coefficients 0.85, 0.81 and 0.76 respectively. The neutron star properties such as mass and radius are calculated with 50 unified equation of states. The results are consiste…
We constrain the parameters of neutron superfluidity in the cores of neutron stars making use of the recently proposed effect of resonance stabilization of $r$-modes. To this end, we, for the first time, calculate the finite-temperature $r$-mode spectra for realistic models of rotating superfluid neutron stars, accounting for both muons and neutron-proton entrainment in their interiors. We find that the ordinary (normal) $r$-mode exhibits avoided crossings with superfluid $r$-modes at certain stellar temperatures and spin frequencies. Near the avoided crossings, the normal $r$-mode dissipates …
Neutrons stars lighter than the Sun are basically composed of nuclear matter of density up to around twice normal nuclear density. In our recent analyses, we showed that possible simultaneous observations of masses and radii of such neutron stars could constrain $η\equiv(K_0L^2)^{1/3}$, a combination of the incompressibility of symmetric nuclear matter $K_0$ and the density derivative of the nuclear symmetry energy $L$ that characterizes the theoretical mass-radius relation. In this paper, we focus on the mass-radius constraint of the X-ray burster 4U 1724-307 given by Suleimanov et al. (2011)…
Neutron stars are the densest objects known in our visible universe. Properties of matter inside a neutron star are encoded in its equation of state, which has wide-ranging uncertainty from a theoretical perspective. With the current understanding of quantum chromodynamics, it is hard to determine the interactions of neutron star matter at such high densities. Also performing many body calculations is computationally intractable. Besides the constitution of the neutron star core is highly speculative -- it is not ruled out that it contains exotic matter like strange baryons, meson condensates,…
Based on the distribution of tidal deformabilities and component masses of binary neutron star merger GW170817, the parametric equation of states (EOS) are employed to probe the nuclear symmetry energy and the properties of neutron star. To obtain a proper distribution of the parameters of the EOS that is consistent with the observation, Bayesian analysis is used and the constraints of causality and maximum mass are considered. From this analysis, it is found that the symmetry energy at twice the saturation density of nuclear matter can be constrained within $E_{sym}(2{ρ_{0}})$ = $34.5^{+20.5}…
The first detection of gravitational waves from the binary neutron star merger event GW170817 has started to provide important new constraints on the nuclear equation of state at high density. The tidal deformability bound of GW170817 combined with the observed two solar mass neutron star poses a serious challenge to theoretical formulations of realistic equations of state. We analyze a fully comprehensive set of relativistic nuclear mean-field theories by confronting them with the observational bounds and the measured neutron-skin thickness. We find that only a few models can withstand these …
The Hawking evaporation of small black holes formed by the collapse of dark matter at the center of neutron stars plays a key role in loosing the constraint on the mass of asymmetric bosonic non-interacting dark matter particles. Different from previous works we show that such a kind of dark matter is viable in the mass range from 3.3 GeV to ~ 10 TeV, which covers the most attractive regions, including the preferred asymmetric dark matter mass ~ 5.7 GeV as well as the 5-15 GeV range favored by DAMA and CoGeNT.
We present a quantitative analysis of superfluidity and superconductivity in dense matter from observations of isolated neutron stars in the context of the minimal cooling model. Our new approach produces the best fit neutron triplet superfluid critical temperature, the best fit proton singlet superconducting critical temperature, and their associated statistical uncertainties. We find that the neutron triplet critical temperature is likely $2.09^{+4.37}_{-1.41} \times 10^{8}$ K and that the proton singlet critical temperature is $7.59^{+2.48}_{-5.81} \times 10^{9}$ K. However, we also show th…
In this conference-proceedings contribution, we review recent advances in placing model-independent constraints on the properties of cold and dense QCD matter inside neutron stars. In addition to introducing new bounds for the Equation of State, we explain how these results may be used to make robust statements about the physical phase of strongly interacting matter in the centers of neutron stars of different masses. Our findings indicate that the existence of quark-matter cores inside massive neutron stars appears to be a very common feature of the allowed Equations of State, and should not …
We analyze observations of eight quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries in globular clusters and combine them to determine the neutron star mass-radius curve and the equation of state of dense matter. We determine the effect that several uncertainties may have on our results, including uncertainties in the distance, the atmosphere composition, the neutron star maximum mass, the neutron star mass distribution, the possible presence of a hotspot on the neutron star surface, and the prior choice for the equation of state of dense matter. We find that the radius of a 1.4 solar mass neutron star is most…
We show how observations of gravitational waves from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers over the next few years can be combined with insights from nuclear physics to obtain useful constraints on the equation of state (EoS) of dense matter, in particular, constraining the neutron-matter EoS to within 20% between one and two times the nuclear saturation density $n_0\approx 0.16\ {\text{fm}^{-3}}$. Using Fisher information methods, we combine observational constraints from simulated BNS merger events drawn from various population models with independent measurements of the neutron star radii expec…
One very promising technique for measuring the dense matter Equation of State exploits hotspots that form on the neutron star surface due to the pulsar mechanism, accretion streams, or during thermonuclear explosions in the neutron star ocean. This article explains how Pulse Profile Modeling of hotspots is being used by the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope installed on the International Space Station in 2017 - and why the technique is a mission driver for the next, larger-area generation of telescopes including the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eX…
We examine the influence of the density dependence of the symmetry energy on several properties of neutron stars. In particular, we study the constraints set on the nuclear matter equation of state by the values of the tidal deformability and neutron star radius, using a diverse set of relativistic and non-relativistic mean field models consistent with bulk properties of finite nuclei and the observed lower bound on the maximum mass of neutron star. The tidal deformability and radius show a strong correlation with specific linear combinations of the isoscalar and isovector nuclear matter param…
We construct an equation of state (EOS) for neutron stars by interpolating hadronic EOS at low density and quark EOS at high density. A hadronic model based on the parity doublet structure is used for hadronic matter and a quark model of Nambu--Jona-Lasinio type is for quark matter. We assume crossover between hadronic matter and quark matter in the the color-flavor locked phase. The nucleon mass of the parity doublet model has a mass associated with the chiral symmetry breaking, and a chiral invariant mass $m_0$ which is insensitive to the chiral condensate. The value of $m_0$ affects the nuc…
More than four decades after the discovery of pulsars, the composition of matter at their cores is still a mystery. This white paper summarizes how recent high-precision measurements of millisecond pulsar masses have introduced new experimental constraints on the properties of super-dense matter, and how continued timing of intriguing new objects, coupled with radio telescope surveys to discover more pulsars, might introduce significantly more stringent constraints.
We describe the model of surface emission from a rapidly rotating neutron star that is applied to Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer X-ray data of millisecond pulsars in order to statistically constrain the neutron star mass-radius relation and dense matter equation of state. To ensure that the associated calculations are both accurate and precise, we conduct an extensive suite of verification tests between our numerical codes for both the Schwarzschild + Doppler and Oblate Schwarzschild approximations, and compare both approximations against exact numerical calculations. We find super…
Constraints set on key parameters of the nuclear matter equation of state (EoS) by the values of the tidal deformability, inferred from GW170817, are examined by using a diverse set of relativistic and non-relativistic mean field models. These models are consistent with bulk properties of finite nuclei as well as with the observed lower bound on the maximum mass of neutron star $\sim 2 ~ {\rm M}_\odot$. The tidal deformability shows a strong correlation with specific linear combinations of the isoscalar and isovector nuclear matter parameters associated with the EoS. Such correlations suggest …
Particles with strangeness content are predicted to populate dense matter, modifying the equation of state of matter inside neutron stars as well as their structure and evolution. In this work, we show how the modeling of strangeness content in dense matter affects the properties of isolated neutrons stars and the tidal deformation in binary systems. For describing nucleonic and hyperonic stars we use the many-body forces model (MBF) at zero temperature, including the $ϕ$ mesons for the description of repulsive hyperon-hyperon interactions. Hybrid stars are modeled using the MIT Bag Model with…
Using a Bayesian approach, we combine measurements of neutron star macroscopic observables obtained by astrophysical and gravitational observations, to derive joint constraints on the equation of state (EoS) of matter at supranuclear density. In our analysis we use two sets of data: (i) the masses and tidal deformabilities measured in the binary neutron star event GW170817, detected by LIGO and Virgo; (ii) the masses and stellar radii measured from observations of nuclear bursts in accreting low-mass X-ray binaries. Using two different parametrizations of the equation of state, we compute the …
Instead of parameterizing the pressure-density relation of a neutron star (NS), one can parameterize its macroscopic properties such as mass ($M$), radius ($R$), and dimensionless tidal deformability ($Λ$) to infer the equation of state (EoS) combining electromagnetic and gravitational wave (GW) observations. We present a new method to parameterize $R(M)$ and $Λ(M)$ relations, which approximate the candidate EoSs with accuracy better than 5\% for all masses and span a broad region of $M-R-Λ$ plane. Using this method we combine the $M-Λ$ measurement from GW170817 and GW190425, and simultaneous …
The NICER collaboration recently published a joint estimate of the mass and the radius of PSR J0030+0451, derived via X-ray pulse-profile modeling. Raaijmakers et al. (2019) explored the implications of this measurement for the dense matter equation of state (EOS) using two parameterizations of the high-density EOS: a piecewise-polytropic model, and a model based on the speed of sound in neutron stars. In this work we obtain further constraints on the EOS following this approach, but we also include information about the tidal deformability of neutron stars from the gravitational wave signal o…
The nuclear matter parameters define the nuclear equation of state (EoS), they appear as coefficients of expansion around the saturation density of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter. We review their correlations with several properties of finite nuclei and of neutron stars within mean-field frameworks. The lower order nuclear matter parameters such as the binding energy per nucleon, incompressibility and the symmetry energy coefficients are found to be constrained in narrow limits through their strong ties with selective properties of finite nuclei. From the correlations of nuclear matte…
Mergers of black hole (BH) and neutron star (NS) binaries are of interest since the emission of gravitational waves (GWs) can be followed by an electromagnetic (EM) counterpart, which could power short gamma-ray bursts. Until now, LIGO/Virgo has only observed a candidate BH-NS event, GW190426\_152155, which was not followed by any EM counterpart. We discuss how the presence (absence) of a remnant disk, which powers the EM counterpart, can be used along with spin measurements by LIGO/Virgo to derive a lower (upper) limit on the radius of the NS. For the case of GW190426\_152155, large measureme…
We inspect the possibility that neutron star interiors are a mixture of ordinary matter and mirror dark matter. This is a scenario that can be naturally envisaged according to well studied accretion mechanisms, including the Bondi-Hoyle one. We show that the inclusion of mirror dark matter in neutron star models lowers the maximum neutron star mass for a given equation of state, and that it decreases the tidal deformability of a given neutron star. These general features imply that, given an equation of state, one can constrain the maximum viable amount of mirror dark matter in neutron stars i…
We use neutron star mass and radius measurements to constrain the spontaneous scalarization phenomenon in scalar-tensor theories using Bayesian analysis. Neutron star structures in this scenario can be significantly different from the case of general relativity, which can be used to constrain the theory parameters. We utilize this idea to obtain lower bounds on the coupling parameter $β$ for the case of massless scalars. These constraints are currently weaker than the ones coming from binary observations, and they have relatively low precision due to the approximations in our method. Neverthel…
The rapid-neutron capture process ($r$ process) is identified as the producer of about 50\% of elements heavier than iron. This process requires an astrophysical environment with an extremely high neutron flux over a short amount of time ($\sim$ seconds), creating very neutron-rich nuclei that are subsequently transformed to stable nuclei via $β^-$ decay. One key ingredient to large-scale $r$-process reaction networks is radiative neutron-capture ($n,γ$) rates, for which there exist virtually no data for extremely neutron-rich nuclei involved in the $r$ process. Due to the current status of nu…
We investigate the properties of dense matter and neutron stars. In particular we discuss model calculations based on the parity doublet picture of hadronic chiral symmetry. In this ansatz the onset of chiral symmetry restoration is reflected by the degeneracy of baryons and their parity partners. In this approach we also incorporate quarks as degrees of freedom to be able to study hybrid stars.
We investigate the chemical potential and baryon number density of the hadron-quark phase transition in neutron star matter. The hadron matter is described with relativistic mean field theory, and the quark matter is described with the Dyson-Schwinger equation approach of QCD. In order to study the first-order phase transition, we develop the sound speed interpolation scheme to construct the equation of state in the middle density region where the hadron phase and quark phase coexist. The phase transition chemical potential is constrained with the maximum mass, the tidal deformability and the …
Photon-axion mixing can create observable signatures in thermal spectra of isolated, cooling neutron stars. Their shape depends on the polarization properties of the radiation, which, in turn, are determined by the structure of stellar outermost layers. Here we investigate the effect of mixing on the spectrum and polarimetric observables, polarization fraction and polarization angle, using realistic models of surface emission. We focus on RX J1856.5-3754, the only source among the X-ray dim isolated neutron stars for which polarimetric measurements in the optical band were performed. Our resul…
Coalescing neutron star (NS)-black hole (BH) binaries are promising sources of gravitational-waves (GWs) to be detected within the next few years by current GW observatories. If the NS is tidally disrupted outside the BH innermost stable circular orbit, an accretion torus may form, and this could eventually power a short gamma-ray burst (SGRB). The observation of an SGRB in coincidence with gravitational radiation from an NS-BH coalescence would confirm the association between the two phenomena and also give us new insights on NS physics. We present here a new method to measure NS radii and th…
Gravitational wave (GW) transients from binary neutron star (BNS) coalescences can, in principle, be subject to gravitational lensing thereby increasing the amplitude and signal-to-noise ratio. We estimate the rate of lensed BNS events resolvable by LIGO and Virgo and find that it is constrained by the current non-detection of a stochastic GW background. Following closely the formalism we developed (10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.141102) in the context of binary black hole lensing, we show that at current sensitivities the fraction of BNS coalescences with lensing magnifications $μ> 1.02$ is less tha…
Neutron stars are the densest objects known in the Universe. Being the final product of stellar evolution, their internal composition and structure is rather poorly constrained by measurements. It is the purpose of this paper to put some constrains on the mass and moment of inertia of neutron stars based on the interpretation of kHz quasi-periodic oscillations observed in low mass X-ray binaries. We use observations of high-frequency quasi-periodic observations (HF-QPOs) in low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) to look for the average mass and moment of inertia of neutron stars. This is done by appl…
Interpreting high-energy, astrophysical phenomena, such as supernova explosions or neutron-star collisions, requires a robust understanding of matter at supranuclear densities. However, our knowledge about dense matter explored in the cores of neutron stars remains limited. Fortunately, dense matter is not only probed in astrophysical observations, but also in terrestrial heavy-ion collision experiments. In this work, we use Bayesian inference to combine data from astrophysical multi-messenger observations of neutron stars and from heavy-ion collisions of gold nuclei at relativistic energies w…
The nearby isolated neutron stars are a group of seven relatively slowly rotating neutron stars that show thermal X-ray spectra, most with broad absorption features. They are interesting both because they may allow one to determine fundamental neutron-star properties by modeling their spectra, and because they appear to be a large fraction of the overall neutron-star population. Here, we describe a series of XMM-Newton observations of the nearby isolated neutron star RX J0806.4-4123, taken as part of larger program of timing studies. From these, we limit the spin-down rate to dnu/dt=(-4.3+/-2.…
Recently exploratory studies were performed on the possibility of constraining the neutron star equation of state (EOS) using signals from coalescing binary neutron stars, or neutron star-black hole systems, as they will be seen in upcoming advanced gravitational wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. In particular, it was estimated to what extent the combined information from multiple detections would enable one to distinguish between different equations of state through hypothesis ranking or parameter estimation. Under the assumption of zero neutron star spins both in signa…
A hypothetical time-variation of the gravitational constant $G$ would make neutron stars expand or contract, so the matter in their interiors would depart from beta equilibrium. This induces non-equilibrium weak reactions, which release energy that is invested partly in neutrino emission and partly in internal heating. Eventually, the star arrives at a stationary state in which the temperature remains nearly constant, as the forcing through the change of $G$ is balanced by the ongoing reactions. Using the surface temperature of the nearest millisecond pulsar (PSR J0437$-$4715) inferred from ul…
