Symmetry energy of super-dense neutron-rich matter from integrating barotropic pressures in neutron stars and heavy-ion reactions

Abstract

Within the minimum model of neutron stars (NS) consisting of neutrons, protons and electrons, a new approach is proposed for inferring the symmetry energy of super-dense neutron-rich nucleonic matter above twice the saturation density $ρ_0$ of nuclear matter directly from integrating iteratively barotropic pressures in both neutron stars and heavy-ion reactions. Simultaneously, the proton fraction of NSs at $β$ equilibrium is extracted as a function of baryon density from the same procedure. An application of this approach using the NS pressure from GW170817 and the pressure in cold symmetric nuclear matter (SNM) extracted earlier by analyzing nuclear collective flow data in relativistic heavy-ion collisions provides a useful constraining band for the symmetry energy above $2ρ_0$.