ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Nuclear Physics​
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1554123
This article is part of the Research TopicStrong and Weak Interactions in Compact StarsView all 7 articles
General features of the stellar matter equation of state from microscopic theory, new maximum-mass constraints, and causality
Provisionally accepted
Francesca Sammarruca*
Tomiwa Ajagbonna- University of Idaho, Moscow, United States
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The profile of a neutron star probes a very large range of densities, from the density of iron up to several times the density of saturated nuclear matter, and thus no theory of hadrons can be considered reliable if extended to those regions. We emphasize the importance of taking contemporary ab initio theories of nuclear and neutron matter as the baseline for any extension method, which will unavoidably involve some degree of phenomenology. We discuss how microscopic theory, on the one end, with causality and maximum-mass constraints, on the other, set strong boundaries to the high-density equation of state. We present our latest neutron star predictions where we combine polytropic extensions and parametrizations guided by speed of sound considerations. The predictions we show include our baseline neutron star cooling curves.
Keywords: Neutron matter, neutron stars, Chiral effective field theory, Neutron star cooling, equation of state
Received: 03 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sammarruca and Ajagbonna. 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: Francesca Sammarruca, University of Idaho, Moscow, United States
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