Non-perturbative study of quantum many-body correlation effects in neutron stars: Equation of state

Although neutron stars have been studied for decades, their internal structure remains enigmatic, mainly due to large uncertainties in the equation of state. In neutron stars, nucleons are strongly interacting by exchanging mesons, which leads to significant quantum many-body correlation effects. Previous mean-field calculations failed to capture these effects. Here, we develop a non-perturbative quantum field-theoretic approach to handle strongly correlated nuclear matters. Based on a linear σ-ω-ρ model with a density-dependent isovector coupling Γ_ρ, we reproduce all the six frequently-used nuclear matter observables by tuning six parameters. After including quantum many-body effects into the equation of state of realistic neutron-star matters, we obtain a mass-radius relation that is in good agreement with recent astrophysical observations. Our results show that the maximal neutron-star mass supported by neutron-dominated matters is ∼ 2.67M_⊙, where M_⊙ is solar mass.