Speaker
Description
We present steps towards a consistent synthesis of nuclear observables such as neutron skins, dipole polarizabilities and nuclear masses, and neutron star observables such as radii and tidal deformabilities. Our models are parameterized by five independent variables: the first three parameters in the density expansion of the symmetry energy and two indices for the polytropic equations of state we use at high density. It is important to make crust and core models consistent in such an approach, as that will allow us to bring additional astrophysical datasets such as X-ray observations of crust cooling to bear. Thus, using consistent crust-core models and combined nuclear and astrophysical datasets, we demonstrate that constraints can be placed on the crust mass and thickness that are more informative than with the two datasets individually, and give an example of a potential source of data associated with crust physics - resonant shattering flares just prior to merger of neutron stars - can give different constraints on the nuclear symmetry energy to neutron star radii and tidal deformabilities.
