Abstract
(1) This review has been written in memory of Steven Moszkowski who unexpectedly passed away in December 2020. It has been inspired by our many years of discussions. Steven’s enthusiasm, drive and determination to understand atomic nuclei in simple terms of basic laws of physics was infectious. He sought the fundamental origin of nuclear forces in free space, and their saturation and modification in nuclear medium. His untimely departure left our job unfinished but his legacy lives on. (2) Focusing on the nuclear force acting in nuclear matter of astrophysical interest and its equation of state (EoS), we take several typical snapshots of evolution of the theory of nuclear forces. We start from original ideas in the 1930s moving through to its overwhelming diversity today. The development is supported by modern observational and terrestrial data and their inference in the multimessenger era, as well as by novel mathematical techniques and computer power. (3) We find that, despite the admirable effort both in theory and measurement, we are facing multiple models dependent on a large number of variable correlated parameters which cannot be constrained by data, which are not yet accurate, nor sensitive enough, to identify the theory closest to reality. The role of microphysics in the theories is severely limited or neglected, mostly deemed to be too difficult to tackle. (4) Taking the EoS of high-density matter as an example, we propose to develop models, based, as much as currently possible, on the microphysics of the nuclear force, with a minimal set of parameters, chosen under clear physical guidance. Still somewhat phenomenological, such models could pave the way to realistic predictions, not tracing the measurement, but leading it.
Highlights
This paper is divided into the following sections: in Section 2, the concept of the equation of state (EoS) is introduced in the context of compact objects; the nuclear physics input to the EoS is highlighted in Section 3, presenting the basic ideas of macroscopic (Section 3.1) and microscopic (Section 3.2) models, followed by a short survey of reliable observational and terrestrial data available for constraining the EoS in Section 4, including neutron stars in Section 4.1, gravitational waves in Section 4.2 and heavy-ion collisions in Sections 4.3 and 4.4; Section 5 contains concluding remarks
In a general form, the EoS is a relation between any thermodynamical state variables of a system which fully specify the state of the system under a given physical condition
Tested the new result obtained by the PREXII collaboration in their analysis including a complex set of data on ground states of finite nuclei and giant monopole resonances, the constraints on the equation of state of symmetric nuclear matter at suprasaturation densities from flow data in heavy-ion collisions, the largest neutron star (NS) mass reported so far for PSR J0740+6620, the neutron stars (NSs) tidal deformability extracted from gravitational wave signal
Summary
In 1936, Bethe and Bacher [1] reviewed rather extensive data, subject to experimental techniques of the day, available on the charge, weight, binding energy, size, spin, statistics and electromagnetic moments of nuclei and outlined the current state of knowledge of nuclear physics. A frequent argument is that the exact solution of the nuclear many-body problem, which is beyond the current computer resources, will be obtained when quantum computers become available This would imply that the free nucleon interaction is fully understood. This paper is divided into the following sections: in Section 2, the concept of the equation of state (EoS) is introduced in the context of compact objects; the nuclear physics input to the EoS is highlighted, presenting the basic ideas of macroscopic (Section 3.1) and microscopic (Section 3.2) models, followed by a short survey of reliable observational and terrestrial data available for constraining the EoS, including neutron stars, gravitational waves in Section 4.2 and heavy-ion collisions in Sections 4.3 and 4.4; Section 5 contains concluding remarks This paper is divided into the following sections: in Section 2, the concept of the equation of state (EoS) is introduced in the context of compact objects; the nuclear physics input to the EoS is highlighted in Section 3, presenting the basic ideas of macroscopic (Section 3.1) and microscopic (Section 3.2) models, followed by a short survey of reliable observational and terrestrial data available for constraining the EoS in Section 4, including neutron stars in Section 4.1, gravitational waves in Section 4.2 and heavy-ion collisions in Sections 4.3 and 4.4; Section 5 contains concluding remarks
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