Tidal deformation of neutron stars from microscopic models of nuclear dynamics

Abstract

The observation of the gravitational wave signal GW170817, consistent with emission from the inspiral of a binary neutron-star system, provided information on the tidal deformation of the participating stars. The available data may be exploited to constrain the equation of state of densenuclear matter, as well as to shed light on the underlying models describing nuclear dynamics at microscopic level. In this paper we compare the experimental results to the predictions of different theoretical models, based on non relativistic nuclear many-body theory, the relativistic field-theoretical formalism, and a more phenomenological approach constrained by observed nuclear properties. While the precision of the available data does not allow to resolve the degeneracy of the models, our analysis shows a distinct sensitivity to the star compactness predicted by the different equations of state, which turns out to be significantly affected by relativistic boost corrections to the nucleon-nucleon potential.