Measurement of the Nuclear Symmetry Energy Parameters from Gravitational-wave Events

The nuclear symmetry energy plays a role in determining both the nuclear properties of terrestrial matter as well as the astrophysical properties of neutron stars. The first measurement of the neutron star tidal deformability, from gravitational-wave event GW170817, provides a new way of probing the symmetry energy. In this work, we report on new constraints on the symmetry energy from GW170817. We focus in particular on the low-order coefficients: namely, the value of the symmetry energy at the nuclear saturation density, S 0, and the slope of the symmetry energy, L 0. We find that the gravitational-wave data are relatively insensitive to S 0, but that they depend strongly on L 0 and point to lower values of L 0 than have previously been reported, with a peak likelihood near L 0 ~ 23 MeV. Finally, we use the inferred posteriors on L 0 to derive new analytic constraints on higher-order nuclear terms.NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program [DGE-1746060]; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [NNX16AC56G]This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu