Influence of Nuclear Symmetry Energy on Neutron Star Crusts

Within Wigner-Seitz approximation, both the coexisting phases method and the self-consistent Thomas-Fermi approximation can be used to describe the nonuniform matter consisting of nuclei, neutrons, and electrons, which may coexist in the inner crust of neutron star. Since the neutron fraction is very large, nuclear symmetry energy may have an important impact on the properties of nonuniform matter. However, the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy around saturation density is still rather uncertain. This paper focuses on the influence of nuclear symmetry energy on the density range of inner crust, pasta phase structure, and crust-core transition density of neutron star, where the relativistic mean field theory is adopted to describe the nucleon-nucleon interaction. It is turned out that the nuclear symmetry energy and its density dependence play an import role in determining the properties of nonuniform matter in the inner crust of neutron star, which is consistent with the former related studies.