Modern tools for computing neutron star properties

Abstract

Astronomical observations place increasingly tighter and more diverse constraints on the properties of neutron stars (NS). Examples include observations of radio or gamma-ray pulsars, accreting neutron stars and x-ray bursts, magnetar giant flares, and recently, the gravitational waves (GW) from coalescing binary neutron stars. Computing NS properties for a given EOS, such as mass, radius, moment of inertia, tidal deformability, and innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO), is therefore an important task. This task is unnecessarily difficult because relevant formulas are scattered throughout the literature and publicly available software tools are far from being complete and easy to use. Further, naive implementations are unreliable in numerical corner cases, most notably when using equations of state (EOS) with phase transitions. To improve the situation, we provide a public library for computing NS properties and handling of EOS data. Further, we include a collection of EOS based on existing nuclear physics models together with precomputed sequences of NS models. All methods are accessible via a Python interface. This article collects all relevant equations and numerical methods in full detail, including a novel formulation for the tidal deformability equations suitable for use with phase transitions. As a sidenote to the topic of ISCOs, we discuss the stability of non-interacting dark matter particle circular orbits inside NSs. Finally, we present some simple applications relevant for parameter estimation studies of GW data. For example, we explore the validity of universal relations, and discuss the appearance of multiple stable branches for parametrized EOS.