Equation of state constraints from nuclear physics, neutron star masses, and future moment of inertia measurements

S. K. Greif, K. Hebeler, J. M. Lattimer, C. J. Pethick, A. Schwenk

Published 2020-05-28Version 1

We explore constraints on the equation of state of neutron-rich matter based on microscopic calculations up to nuclear densities and observations of neutron stars. In a previous work arXiv:1303.4662 we showed that predictions based on modern nuclear interactions derived within chiral effective field theory and the observation of 2-solar-mass neutron stars result in a robust uncertainty range for neutron star radii and the equation of state over a wide range of densities. In this work we extend this study, employing both the piecewise polytrope extension from arXiv:1303.4662 as well as the speed of sound model of arXiv:1812.08188, and show that moment of inertia measurements of neutron stars can significantly improve the constraints on the equation of state and neutron star radii.