Abstract
Recent progress in quantum Monte Carlo with modern nucleon-nucleon interactions have enabled the successful description of properties of light nuclei and neutron-rich matter. As a demonstration, we show that the agreement between theoretical calculations of the charge form factor of 12C and the experimental data is excellent. Applying similar methods to isospin-asymmetric systems allows one to describe neutrons confined in an external potential and homogeneous neutron-rich matter. Of particular interest is the nuclear symmetry energy, the energy cost of creating an isospin asymmetry. Combining these advances with recent observations of neutron star masses and radii gives insight into the equation of state of neutron-rich matter near and above the saturation density. In particular, neutron star radius measurements constrain the derivative of the symmetry energy.
Highlights
In the last few decades, properties of nuclear systems have been successfully described by nucleonnucleon potentials like Argonne and Urbana/Illinois forces, that reproduces two-body scattering and properties of light nuclei with very high precision [1, 2]
The use of correlated wave functions combined with Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods has provided highly accurate solutions of the ground state of many-body nuclear systems [7]
The knowledge of the Equation of State (EoS) of pure neutron matter is an important bridge from the nucleon-nucleon interaction to neutron-rich matter
Summary
In the last few decades, properties of nuclear systems have been successfully described by nucleonnucleon potentials like Argonne and Urbana/Illinois forces, that reproduces two-body scattering and properties of light nuclei with very high precision [1, 2]. These systems describe inhomogeneous neutron matter that can be used as data for calibrating model energy density functionals in several conditions [16, 17] The use of these functionals to study nuclei close to the neutron drip line requires an important extrapolation to large isospin-asymmetries. This extrapolation is even more dramatic when the Skyrme forces are used to study the properties of the neutron star crust, where the matter is made by extremely neutron-rich nuclei surrounded by a sea of neutrons For these reasons, ab-initio calculations of these systems starting from accurate nuclear Hamiltonians are important to constrain density functionals
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