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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Nuclear Physics​
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1505560
This article is part of the Research Topic Strong and Weak Interactions in Compact Stars View all 3 articles

The nuclear symmetry energy and the neutron skin thickness in nuclei

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, Rome, Italy
  • 2 INFN Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    We investigate possible correlations between the stiffness of the symmetry energy at saturation density, the so-called L parameter, and the neutron skin thickness of 48 Ca and 208 Pb, for which the recent measurements from the CREX and PREX I+II experiments at the Thomas Jefferson Laboratory became available. We choose an ensemble of nucleonic equations of state (EoS) derived within microscopic (BHF, Variational, AFDMC) and phenomenological (Skyrme, RMF, DD-RMF) approaches. They are all compatible with the laboratory nuclear collisions data and with current observations of neutron stars (NS) mass and the tidal polarizability of a 1.4 M ⊙ NS, as deduced from the GW170817 event. We find some degree of correlation between the L parameter and the neutron skin thickness whereas a much weaker correlation does exist with the tidal polarizability and the symmetry energy at saturation density. However, some EoS which are able to explain the CREX experimental data, are not compatible with the PREX I+II data, and viceversa. We confirm the results previously obtained with a different set of EoS models, and find a possible tension between the experimental data and the current understanding of the nuclear EoS.

    Keywords: neutron star, equation of state, Many-body methods of nuclear matter, Neutron skin thickness, CREX, PREX I+II

    Received: 03 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Burgio, Das and Vidana. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: G. F. Burgio, National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, Rome, Italy

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