https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-021-00605-6
Regular Article
The effect of the energy functional on the pasta-phase properties of catalysed neutron stars
1
Normandie Université, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC Caen, 14000, Caen, France
2
Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds (GANIL), CEA/DRF-CNRS/IN2P3, Boulevard Henri Becquerel, 14076, Caen, France
Received:
8
July
2021
Accepted:
6
October
2021
Published online:
26
October
2021
Nuclear pasta, that is an inhomogeneous distribution of nuclear matter characterised by non-spherical clustered structures, is expected to occur in a narrow spatial region at the bottom of the inner crust of neutron stars, but the width of the pasta layer is strongly model dependent. In the framework of a compressible liquid-drop model, we use Bayesian inference to analyse the constraints on the sub-saturation energy functional and surface tension imposed by both ab-initio chiral perturbation theory calculations and experimental measurements of nuclear masses. The posterior models are used to obtain general predictions for the crust-pasta and pasta-core transition with controlled uncertainties. A correlation study allows us to extract the most influential parameters for the calculation of the pasta phases. The important role of high-order empirical parameters and of the surface tension is underlined.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
