Equation of state of dense matter in the multimessenger era

Abstract

While the equation of state (EOS) of symmetric nuclear matter (SNM) at suprasaturation densities has been relatively well constrained from heavy-ion collisions, the EOS of high-density neutron-rich matter is still largely uncertain due to the poorly known high-density behavior of the symmetry energy. Using the constraints on the EOS of SNM at suprasaturation densities from heavy-ion collisions together with the data of finite nuclei and the existence of $2M_\odot$ neutron stars from electromagnetic (EM) observations, we show that the high-density symmetry energy cannot be too soft, which leads to lower bounds on dimensionless tidal deformability of $\Lambda_{1.4} \ge 193$ and radius of $R_{1.4} \ge 11.1$ km for $1.4M_\odot$ neutron star. Furthermore, we find that the recent constraint of $\Lambda_{1.4} \le 580$ from the gravitational wave signal GW170817 detected from the binary neutron star merger by the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations rules out too stiff high-density symmetry energy, leading to an upper limit of $R_{1.4} \le 13.3$ km. All these terrestrial nuclear experiments and astrophysical observations based on strong, EM and gravitational measurements together put stringent constraints on the high-density symmetry energy and the EOS of SNM, pure neutron matter and neutron star matter.